My Friend
by Shawn45
Summary: Garry managed to save Ib a the cost of his own life, or so he thought. Instead of death, he wakes up and learns that it's now only him and Mary left in the gallery. Faced with the choice of leaving or staying with Mary, he decides to stay behind to keep Mary company. Eventual Garry/Mary.
1. My Friend

**This story is based on an idea by toppie from her Ib fanfic 'Blue and Yellow'. She gave me permission to do this, so thank you! Also check out her story if you haven't already, it's pretty good.**

**Enjoy!**

XxXxXxX

My Friend

Garry grunted as he fell to the ground, his legs had failed him, and he slammed his back against the wall hard, gasping for air as he felt his life dwindling away. His blue rose – his life force – was being ripped apart, and there was nothing he could do to stop his upcoming demise. He supposed he should be afraid, but really, he felt more relieved than anything. He was simply glad that at least he protected Ib in the end, that alone was worth all the pain. He continued to breath heavily as he slid down the wall, finally sitting down in what he knew would be his final resting place.

"Garry!" The girl cried as he fell against the wall, and she looked up and around the narrow and dark hallway they were in. The duo were pushed into a large toy box earlier, and Mary took Garry's rose in exchange for Ib's rose, since she was dumb enough to let go of it when she fell.. The red eyed girl bit her bottom lip in an attempt to not cry out, but it was a futile effort, she could feel tears slowly beginning to roll down her face as Garry gasped out for breath. She couldn't stand the guilt she was feeling. This was all her fault...

"I – I'm fine Ib," He grinned, despite the horrible pain he felt. His heart was beating erratically and continuously as it thumped against his chest painfully. Each breath he took was labored, and he couldn't stop coughing

"No… You're not…" She cried, "Don't die…" She reached forward with her hand and gently touched his cheek, tears falling from her face when she knew that his demise was inevitable. Her hand shook so badly, but she steadied it, and leaned forward, hugging him.

"I – Ib…" He looked down at the girl, and he gently wrapped an arm around her. The action itself taking much more strength than he would care to admit, "I don't want to lie to you, but…" He chuckled, regretting it the moment he did, since it sent a searing pain through his sternum, but he held in his pained cry, and continued, "But… I don't want to tell you the truth either, you know?"

She shook her head, holding in her tears, "Don't go… Garry... Please." She held him tighter, squeezing his body for all it was worth, as if it would do something to bring him back to life. She knew the futility of it all though, and simply leaned against his chest, crying against him.

"Ib, you have a long life ahead of you," He smiled at her, "Don't let someone like me hold you back." He reached up, and with great effort, he managed to pat her head, "I want you to be happy..."

"I want you to come with me," She muttered stubbornly, shaking her head, her tears beginning to soak into his shirt.

He groaned, closing his eyes, but he opened them short after to look back down at her, "Ib, I'm sorry, but I don't think that's going to happen." He coughed, and it again sent searing pain through his body. This time he could help but grit his teeth, and let out a soft groan. She just cried, taking hold of his hand as he let it drop to his side, his strength leaving him. He closed his eyes, feeling very sleepy. His head nodded forward a little bit, and his senses started to dim more and more, Ib sounded further and further away, and he felt more detached from his body than ever before.

"I'm sorry, Ib…" He muttered, feeling the last bit of his life starting to leave. His hearing faded, and the last thing he could hear was Ib screaming his name. He felt horrible, but at least she was safe.

"Garry?" he heard the girl's cry, "Garry!" He couldn't hear anything more, and he lost consciousness, and the entire world went away…

… For what felt like only a few seconds.

He could faintly hear some voices, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He tried to open his eyes, move his hands, or even speak up, but nothing worked. He had heard something about this before, where your mind woke up before your body, but this was the first time he had ever experienced such a thing. Perhaps this was the afterlife instead? If it was, then it was a crummy entrance, and he was sorely disappointed so far.

"Do you think it'll work?" He was able to make that out at least, and it sounded like a young girl's voice. It wasn't Ib's distinctive voice, that was for sure, but it sounded kind of like… Mary? Was she in the afterlife with him too? No, did paintings even have souls to go to the afterlife? Did he have a soul? Oh god... He had to wake up soon, he didn't want to start have a stupid philosophical discussion with himself!

"Well, I guess it can't hurt to try, could it?" What was she talking about? Who was she even talking to? What in the world was going on? He dearly wished that he could move his body at all, but that wasn't possible. Maybe if he concentrated on opened his eyes, he would be able to do it. It was then that he felt someone placed their hands on his cheeks, and a peculiar sensation against his lips. The experience only lasted a few seconds, and then it stopped.

"Aw… I guess fairy tales aren't true after all." The disappointment in her voice was obvious to Garry, yet he had no idea what her objective was.

_Did she just kiss me?_ He couldn't help but ask in his mind, since it was his only safe haven, _what in the world is she trying to do? Damn it Garry, open your eyes! _He again focused on opening his eyes, and failed yet again.

"Again? Well… Ok. I'll try one more time!"

_She sounds determined._ He thought humorlessly to himself, and he again focused on opening his eyes. He again felt the girl hold his face, and he again felt her lips touch his own, and he finally opened his eyes, looking directly into Mary's bright blue eyes. He watched as Mary's eyes widened, and she jumped back.

"Ahh!" She screamed, "H – He opened his eyes!" She landed several feet away, and looked fearfully at him, her blue eyes scanning his body, as if he were about to get up and start attacking her or something.

"Isn't that a good thing?" The doll beside her asked, glancing over at Garry and then back to Mary, "That means that your fairy tales are true after all! A kiss did wake him up!" Garry wasn't sure, but it almost sounded like the doll was mocking her... Why would it do that though? He thought everyone in here was on Mary's side.

"Y – You're right!" Her fright at him suddenly opening his eyes was completely forgotten, and she started to jump up and down, cheering the entire time, "Fairy tales are true! They are!" She picked up the blue doll beside her by its arms, and Garry allowed his mouth to fall open as he finally regained control of his body. In front of him now was Mary as he remembered her, the little girl that was roughly Ib's age danced around in her green dress, cheerfully laughing as she held onto one of those very creepy dolls with red eyes and stitched mouths and had that creepy blue body. Wait... That doll talked... That wasn't normal.

"He's looking over here!" The doll motioned its head towards Garry while Mary continued to spin around, "Say something to him!" Mary casually dropped the doll as she skipped over to Mary, and Garry watched as the doll rolled around on the floor for a bit before stopping.

She glanced down at Garry, and smiled, "Good morning!" She waved her hand, and offered it down to him to help him get up.

He rolled his shoulders, and did a quick once over of his body. He was still wearing his coat; he still had on his shirt and pants… He looked up, and realized that he was still in the hallway where he had apparently died… _Hold on, didn't I died?_ He wondered to himself, and he just decided to ask aloud what the deal was, ignoring her odd quip,"Why aren't I dead?"

"Because I kissed you to bring you back to life, just like in the fairy tales!" Mary explained, her grin spreading across her face. She again shook her hand slightly, signalling him to take hold of it, and he finally relented. Using one hand as support, he allowed Mary to take hold of the other, and she pulled with all her might. It was oddly cute, but this had been the girl who had only recently tried to kill him, so he didn't voice it aloud. There was no telling what she would do.

"What?" He groaned, as he looked down at the girl he now towered over and asked, "Is Ib safe?" That was his main concern above all else - if Ib was safe, then he knew that his... death? Unconsciousness? Whatever, wasn't all for nothing.

Mary's happy cheer diminished at that. He noticed that her smile disappeared, and she averted her eyes to look at the featureless and black wall. She puffed up her cheeks, and pouted, "She left a while ago. It's just you and me now." Garry noticed her lips curling downward, and she blinked a few times to hide... tears? Whatever, he couldn't help but feel happy.

He let out a loud sigh, and he felt relief flood through him. Ib was alive and well! She got away to the real world safety! He let out a laugh, "That's great!"

"If you say so…" Mary whispered, quickly reaching up to wipe her eyes with her sleeves. Garry was actually starting to feel a bit bad, but before he could say anything, the doll walked over beside him.

"So, what are you going to do?" The doll asked Garry in a high pitch voice, looking way up at him. Garry was a tower compared to Mary, but relative to the doll, he was a titan. That was what made his reaction so embarrassing for him.

"Woah!" He took a large step away from the monster, almost a short jump since it was so quick, and it caused Mary to giggle in delight. Garry was easily ten times the height of the doll, and he was acting like it could do anything to him, "W – well, I guess I ought to return home too." Garry stated, unable to hide his blush, since Mary was laughing at him and since he reacted in such a way to the small doll.

Mary's giggling ended there, and she looked up at Garry, "No! You can't go!" Her hands balled up into fists at her side, and she again looked like she was about to cry.

"I'm sorry, but I have to. I have responsibilities in the real world. I can't stay here." He explained calmly, "Could you show me the exit?" He tried to smile at her, since she seemed to be becoming really distress, but he didn't expect her to start yelling.

"NO!" She screamed, "I won't let you go!" She pulled out a palette knife from within her dress, and her blue eyes glared at him, "Why does everyone always leave me? Ib left me, You're going to leave, _he_ left me!" She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back tears, "Why don't you want to play with me?!"

Crap, here was the murderous girl from earlier – the one who had been chasing him and Ib. _I _n_eed to do something to make her go back to how she was. _He thought to himself desperately, as red cracks started to appear in the ground around Mary as she continued ranting about how no one wanted to play with her. He noticed the blue doll had pressed itself against the wall, appearing to be quite fearful of Mary right now. "Mary..." He called, trying to get her attention, but she didn't hear him.

"I'll make it so you can't leave!" She decided, "I'll-"

Garry took a deep breath and yelled, "Mary! Stop it!" He yelled that as loud as he could, his voice booming in the narrow hallway. She did stop momentarily in her rant and gave him a wide eyed stare with tears streaming down her cheeks, giving him just enough time to step forward and grab her wrist holding the knife, and he forced her to drop it to the ground, "Stop acting like a spoiled child!"

"B – But…" Her lips trembled, and he could see renewed tears in her eyes, "I – I don't want you to go… I don't want to be all alone…" She pitifully whined, when she realized that she couldn't do anything in the grip he had her in. She started to sniffle, and then cry, her hand going limp in his hold.

He sighed, and he gently got down to one knee so he could look the crying girl in the eyes, and he let go of Mary's hand, "What do you mean, all alone?" He wanted to look away - whenever he saw children crying he always felt bad, but he had to do this.

"Whenever people come in they never want to play with me, they always want to go home…" She whimpered, wiping her eyes with her balled up fists, "No one ever stays with me…" She let out a few choked sobs.

"What about your dolls, and the other paintings?" He asked, trying to reassure her in any way he could, finally settling on patting her head gently. While she did try to kill him earlier, he just couldn't leave a child crying and _not _do anything about it.

"They don't like me," She cried, "They're scared… They don't want to be friends with me." She was at least receptive to his patting, she she seemed to be calming down a little bit.

"Scared?" He muttered, looking to the doll that was in the hall with them, "So that guy's afraid of you?" He pointed to the blue doll, and it was then that he noticed that the doll was staring at him wide eyed... That was odd. Why was that? He shook his head, and turned his attention back to Mary.

She nodded, and cried harder, "I just want a friend… Someone to play with..." Her sobs renewed themselves, and she couldn't stop crying after that, let alone form coherent sentences. He didn't know what caused it, but it must have been from him asking her about the dolls and forcing her to admit that she had no friends in this world.

Realizing that him patting her head wasn't working anymore, he did the one thing he knew could calm a crying child - he reached forward and wrapped his arms gently around her, and he whispered, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize how alone you've been all this time." Perhaps for the first time in her life, Garry figured, Mary felt the warmth of a hug, and she tenderly reached up and wrapped her own arms around Garry, and she felt her tears coming on harder than before. She simply gripped his coat, and cried out all the pain she felt throughout the years she had been stuck in there, and the entire time, Garry had a firm grip on her. Soon, she wore herself out, and she was sleeping soundly against Garry's chest.

"Incredible." The doll muttered, wandering over slowly, as if it were afraid that Mary would wake up if it were to come any quicker. Its eyes wandered from Mary, up to Garry. It didn't make a move towards Garry, but it still really freaked him out.

Garry's first instinct was to desperately jump away and let out a scream, but he didn't want to disturb Mary, so he held his terror inside and asked, "Wh – what do you mean?" He gently held Mary's limb body as she let out quiets breaths, and he turned slightly to look towards the doll.

"I mean, you actually calmed her down from when she got angry. When that happens usually someone gets badly hurt." The doll explained, and its red eyes looked down to Mary, and then back up to Garry again, and Garry again had to suppress a shout.

"I – I see." Garry mumbled, "So… What's this about not having friends? You seem to be with her, from what I can tell." He unconsciously began to rub the back of Mary's head as she slept against him. Mary's little body in return snuggled a bit closer to him, letting out a content sigh.

"I'm only with her because she drags me around everywhere." The doll assured him, "If you stay, hopefully she'll leave me alone." Garry saw the stitches on its mouth curve upward, making the one frightening looking doll look downright demonic. Garry forced himself to calm down though, letting out a few breaths, which caused the doll to giggle at his fright.

Garry frowned, "I see… I'm sorry though, I don't intend on staying. Can you show me where to put her so I can leave? Can you take me to her room, maybe?" He didn't want to hurt Mary's feelings, but surely she'd understand that he _had_ to leave, he couldn't leave all of his responsibilities behind.

"Leaving a poor girl who had just begged you to be her friend?" The doll chuckled, "That's quite harsh. She won't take that well when she wakes up." More giggles followed as the doll looked down the hall.

"I know…" He sighed dejectedly, "But I need to escape." He looked down at the sleeping form of Mary. She looked so peaceful that he again felt a huge wave of guilt come over him, but... he had to go. There was no other way he could get around it. He wondered momentarily if he was starting to go insane, since he was talking to a doll right now, but he shoved that uncomfortable thought aside and gently held Mary in his arms as he stood up. Was it right to leave her here and go by himself? Well… She was a painting, and that didn't make her a real girl, and she did try to kill him, but she certainly acted like a real girl, so much so that he knew that she would be very, very upset if she woke up all alone.

"Can you lead me to her room?" He asked the doll again, looking down at the blue monstrosity. The doll simply shrugged, and started walking down the hall.

"It's not far from here," The doll claimed, "Follow me." Garry walked after the doll, following it down the long hallway, and up some stairs at the end of it. Once upstairs, he noticed that there was a doorway with vines blocking it, preventing passage through. He looked at it curiously, and watched as the doll walked up to the door, and reached up to touch the vines. The vines retracted then, and the doll turned around to look at Garry. "This is her room, just set her down on her 'bed' and be on your way out. Just don't read anything you find in there, or the consequences could be… dire." The doll giggled like mad when it said that, and it went the other way, exited the room, and then presumably the building that they were in.

Garry shuddered at the thought of interacting with that doll anymore, and he felt relief when he saw it leaving, though he did feel a sense of foreboding from its warning. Should he trust it? He felt Mary shift in his arms, and he set his mind to the task at hand, going through the previously blocked pathway into the room. He went up some stairs yet again, and into a long narrow room, at the end of which was what looked like a painting, except there was nothing on it. "Interesting…" He mumbled, "Is this her original painting then?"

He felt his foot stepping on something, and he looked down, realizing that he had accidentally crushed some chalk. He looked around the floor and realized that it was an absolute mess. There were pieces of chalk carelessly scattered everywhere, all over were pictures of people that Mary must have drawn with crayons, since they were also scattered all over. There were markers, pencils, charcoal, and so many other things randomly tossed all over the floor too. He noticed pictures laying abandoned all over the place as well, and he couldn't help but instinctively want to get down and start cleaning the messy room. He held in his desire to do just that, and instead made sure to carefully traverse the messy path to what vaguely looked like a bed drawn on the ground. He frowned, and touched it, realizing that while it looked like it was a poorly drawn bed flat on the ground, the surface of the 'bed' was actually very soft. He supposed it made just about as much sense as the drawing of the sun 'outside' being warm. He gently set the girl down on the soft surface, and looked around. He again felt pity, but he had to leave.

That was when something caught his eye, he saw a large notebook beside Mary's bed, and he lifted it up, and began to flip through the pages. The first several pages were drawings of some unknown man, and above him was written 'daddy' in bright colors. He smiled at the picture, but his smile disappearing when he wondered where exactly Mary's so-called dad was, or if she even had parents, considering she was a painting. He decided not to think about it, and instead flipped through a few more pages, to a page scrawled with very poor handwriting that was in all uppercase, and it had even worse grammar.

"Today…" He squint his eyes as he struggled to read the words, "Daddy said he was going to go for a little while." He managed to make out. That was all that was written on the page, and it had been written with crayons in big bold letters. He flipped to the next page, and since there were no dates, he had no idea how far apart these were written from each other, "I can't wait to see daddy." He flipped through the next fifty or so pages, all of which said something along similar lines. Finally he came to a page that just said, 'I miss him so much.' He flipped to the next page, and realized that it was the girl just rambling on to herself about random things. Eventually, he got near the end of the diary, and read aloud, "I like visitors coming to live with me, but I want to leave this place and live outside, but unless I take the place of someone outside, I can't do that. Won't somebody come soon?" He flipped through the next few pages, which were just scrawled with 'Won't somebody come soon', over and over. So that's it. Mary just wanted to leave as badly as he and Ib did, but the difference was that she couldn't leave unless if one of them stayed behind.

_Then why didn't she leave when I had died? _He wondered. In fact, how was he even still alive? He looked around the room, and realized that he had completely missed that in the corner of the room, stood a vase with a blue rose in it, fully healed. Mary must have put it there, especially if it was in this room, but why? She could have gotten what she wanted.

"G – Garry…?" She mumbled, sitting up, and wiping her eyes. She saw that he had her diary open in front of him, and her eyes widened, "W – Wait! Put that away! Don't read it!" He turned around, and while dropping the book he surprised her by dropping to his knees and giving her a warm hug, wrapping his large hands around the smaller girl. Mary shook in his hold, but she stood strong, keeping her arms at her sides, and biting her bottom lip, trying not to cry.

"Why did you save me?" He asked, looking at the girl who had gotten out of her bed and stood there, "You could have escaped."

"I – I couldn't do it." She mumbled, "I wanted out so bad, b – but… I didn't want to kill someone to do it…" She whispered the last bit, and he heard her trying to suppress her crying again, though she was clearly failing, since she was beginning to sniffle, and he could see tears beginning to hit the ground.

"I see." He softly spoke, closing his eyes as he continued the embrace, "Thank you."

"A – Are you leaving too?" She asked, shaking in his embrace. He was quiet for a very long moment, as his thoughts went over everything he had learned that day. How she was a painting that wanted out, how she tried to kill him, how she almost did kill him, but ended up saving him in the end… He let out a sigh, and stopped hugging her, putting his arms on her shoulders as he looked her in the eyes.

"I'll stay with you." He told her, knowing that the best way to get a child to know that you were telling the truth was to do it this way. Mary got the message immediately, and her eyes widened.

Her jaw dropped shortly after her eyes widened, and she quickly managed to let out a very quiet, "R – Really?" He could see that she didn't seem to quite believe it, her wide eyes had tears pouring out of them, but he could see the intense desire she had for him to stay. She didn't want him to go.

He nodded, "Yeah. I want to stay with you. I'll be your friend." Mary wasn't able to stop her tears any longer, and she quickly hugged him, her breaths coming out in short gasps and she shook very hard as she held onto him. Garry simply wrapped his arms around her again, and held her as she let out a loud wail, and then she cried harder than she had in all her life. She was so happy to have finally gained a friend.

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Notes:

I usually upload stories when I finish writing them, but this is an exception. I currently have 7 additional chapters of this written (I still need to edit them though), so for now I'm not going to update this daily like I usually do. I think I'll update it every 2 to 3 days until I complete the story. Once I reach that point, then the remaining chapters will be uploaded daily.

Thank you all for reading!

CHAPTER REVISED: 6/25/2013 - Added in a lot more detail, combined a lot of sentences, restructured others, etc. This chapter had 1.3k additional words added to it.


	2. Games and Food

Games and Food

It took a short while, but eventually she was done crying, and she finally let go of Garry's coat, and she looked to the side nervously as she did so, shyly crossing her legs and wrapping her hands around her back, her eyes averted away from him. If Garry didn't know any better, he would have assumed that this shy little girl was real, just like Ib had been. He chuckled a bit at how shy she was acting, and looked around her expansive room, and finally returned his gaze back down to her.

"So… What do you do for fun around here?" He asked.

"I like to play games!" Mary claimed enthusiastically, a wide smile on her face as she looked over to him.

"Games, huh." He chuckled, "I'm pretty familiar with that. Ok, if you want to do that, then I'm willing to join you."

She let out a loud cheer, and dashed around the room, picking up all the chalk she could. He couldn't help but yet again chuckle at her antics, and she quickly ran over to him and handed him a large handful of the chalk, and then she started to gather even more for herself to hold. A few minutes later, after she had thoroughly checked the room, she beckoned Garry down the stairs he had used to enter the room, and the two walked out of the 'house' they were in.

"Where do you want to draw?" He asked, looking around the huge black area where Mary had drawn all sorts of things in her free time.

"Over here! I haven't done anything over here!" She quickly took hold of his hand, and held the chalk she was holding close to her chest, and practically dragged Garry to a blank patch of land, where the two of them could draw. Once there, Mary let go of his hands, and dropped down to her knees, allowing the chalk to fall to the ground, and she looked up expectantly at him.

Garry looked around the area that he had been dragged off to. It was completely pitch black – he had absolutely no idea how far off this room went, since he wasn't able to identify any corners. He looked back from where they came, and he could see the 'road' and 'houses' that he had visited earlier that day. It was very surreal, and he felt himself getting a bit queasy at the thought of getting lost out in this black wilderness. He'd have to make sure he was always within distance of the 'town' so that wouldn't happen.

"Garry?"

"Oh!" He snapped out of his thoughts, and looked to the girl patiently waiting, and he finally relented, getting down onto his knees beside the girl. He took off his jacket, not wanting to get chalk all over it, and put it aside, "So, what do you want to draw?"

"I wanna play some games!" She yelled in sheer excitement, "I remember hearing about a game called hopscotch, do you know how to play that?"

He chuckled, "I've heard of it, though I honestly don't really know how to play."

"I can teach you!" She assured him, "First we need to draw the game!"

"Alright," He shrugged, "Just tell me what to do."

"I think we need to draw…" She paused, biting her bottom lip as she held up ten fingers, and her eyes glazed over as if she were trying to recall a distant memory, "No… Nine… Ten?" She shook her head, and her eyes lit up, "Eight, we need to draw eight squares!"

"Ok." Garry reached down, and with one of the chalk he brought he drew a nearly perfectly angled square.

"No, no, no!" She came over, and grabbed his chalk, "That's too small!"

"Ah," He sheepishly laughed, "I'm sorry, I suppose I should have asked how big to make them."

"It needs to be big enough to fit your whole foot!" She looked at him, "You really haven't heard of this game?"

"I said earlier that I've heard of it, but thinking back on it… I honestly can't remember the last time I even saw a hopscotch field, or board, or whatever you call them." He shrugged.

She let out a sigh, "Everyone should know how to play!"

"Everyone?"

"Yeah!" She nodded, her eyes lighting up, and he could see how happy she was to be talking to someone about something she really enjoyed. He found it odd how she hadn't seemed to even remember the amount of squares the field needed, but then it came to him… Since the objects in the gallery were afraid of her, the last time she probably played this was with her 'father' that he read about. Who knew how long ago that was? If she had forgotten the details of a game she really seemed to enjoy, then it must have been quite a long time. Not for the first time that day, he began to feel pity for the girl, and he vowed to try and make her happy.

"So that's how you do it," He mused as he watched her finish up the board. Her squares were more flawed than the small one he had drawn earlier, but they were about three times large, and each one had a number in them.

"Yep!" She nodded, and turned to look at him, "Ok, so the way you play is like this!" She looked around, and then frowned, "We need a rock actually…"

"A rock?"

She nodded, "I can make one, don't worry." She went over to the pile of chalk they had brought out, and pulled out a pink chalk, and drew a small circle on the ground. She then set aside the chalk, and reached down and actually picked the rock up, much to his surprise. He honestly probably shouldn't have been so surprised, since a hand-drawn sun could be warm, and a hand-drawn bed could be soft, but even now, it was surreal to see. She then drew another one, and handed it to him.

"Thank you," He mumbled, still a bit surprised. He let his finger feel the texture of the 'rock' he had been given, and to his surprise, it felt just like a rock would feel. He honestly didn't think he would ever get used to that.

"You're welcome!" She smiled up to him, "Now, the way you play is like this!" She went to the front of the board where she had drawn the box with the number one in it, and she dropped the rock in that square, "To start, you need to throw the rock into number one, and you CAN'T jump in that square." She demonstrated by jumping over the one square and into the number two square, notably with one foot up, "You can only use one foot," She made sure to say to him, "After that, you need to jump to the end and back, and you need to pick up the rock on your way back!" She continued down the course she had made, placing both feet down in the three and four spot, as well as the six and seven spot, and then she turned around, and on the number two square, she leaned down with on foot still in the air, and grabbed the rock, and jumped over the number one square again and back next to Garry.

"You're pretty agile." He smiled at her, "Good work."

She giggled at the praise, "It's easy!"

"So now what do we do?"

"Since I made it back, I get to go again. This time I throw it into the number two square, and instead of jumping over one, I gotta jump over two." She explained.

Like before, she made it through without a single problem, and then she threw the 'rock' into the number three square, and like before she had no trouble. It was when she went to throw it into the number four square that the rock rolled out of the square and onto the pitch black ground beside it, and she crossed her arms and let out a loud sigh.

"Does that mean it's my turn?" He asked as he looked to her.

"Yeah," She replied, going over to pick up her rock, "I lost my turn because it went out of bounds, you can go now."

And so the game went on like that, with each of them exchanging turns, though Garry did mess up a few times on purpose to allow Mary to play some more. Mary never caught on, and Garry felt glad to see that she was having such a good time, giggling and laughing the entire time they were playing. It was clear to him that she hadn't done this for a very long time, and it was gratifying to play just to see her having a good time.

A few hours had passed, and Garry went to put his coat on, shivering slightly. He didn't know why, but it was starting to get a bit cold in the room.

"Are you ok?" Mary asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," He assured her, "It's just a bit chilly in here."

"Is it?" She mumbled, lifting a hand up in the air as if trying to feel the chill. She frowned and her eyes hardened a bit. He realized then that she must not be able to feel the cold, and if she couldn't feel the cold, then she probably couldn't feel warmth, and if she couldn't feel any of those, then there was a high likelihood that she couldn't feel hard or soft things either.

He felt terrible from bringing it up, and he fumbled his words, "Eh! I mean, it's not that bad." He smiled, trying to make her feel better, "It's just fine."

Her eyes glanced up at him, and her lips thinned into a small line, and she shook her head, "No… It's cold, right? I can warm this place up for you, if you'd like."

"Mary," He mumbled, "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," She smiled widely, "You know my secret, and you still are staying in here with me, so it's ok."

"It's no problem; I want to stay with you."

With that, the painful look Mary once had was replaced with a genuine smile, and Garry couldn't but smile back to her, and he picked up the chalk as the two walked back towards the town that she had made herself, and she made a quick stop at the sun. She reached up into the pile that Garry was carrying with both hands, and pulled out a yellow chalk, and she got down to her knees in front of the yellow sun, and drew a few more lines coming from it. Garry suddenly felt the temperature go up a few notches, and even now, knowing that Mary could manipulate this entire world with chalk, his mouth still fell open in surprise.

"You look funny," She giggled as she turned to look at his awed face.

"I'm sorry," He shook his head, and looked down at the yellow sun, "So you can change things you've already drawn?"

"I think anything in this gallery can be changed if I want to change it," She mumbled, tapping her chin in thought, "I never really thought about it before."

"You're amazing."

She blushed at the praise, and averted her eyes, "W – Well…"

She then heard a rumble from him, and she turned to look at him. He started to blush a bit, and let out a forced laugh, "I haven't eaten all day, I don't suppose you have some food in here I can have?"

"Food?" She mumbled the word, as if it were foreign to her.

"You know, it's what we have to eat to survive?"

"O – Oh!" She nodded, "I remember hearing about an apple! That was food, right?" She smiled, but her smile fell, "But wait, it was poisoned."

"I can assure you that food is typically not poisoned – not food that you want to eat at any rate." He forced out a laugh, "Have you never really eaten in here?"

"I don't need to," She mumbled, "You know…"

"Right," He nodded quickly, "Sorry for bringing it up."

"It's ok." She muttered, though he could see that she was clearly hurt by the question, since it gave a clear indication that she was far from human, despite how much she wished she were one, she then glanced up at him, "You're right though, you do need to eat, hm…" As she sat on the ground by the sun, she pressed her thumb against her chin in thought, "Maybe I can draw something?"

"You think that'd work?"

She shrugged, "I don't know."

"I guess it's worth a shot."

"So what do you want to eat?" She asked.

"Let's just try something basic, like some bread."

"Bread, ok!" She nodded, and when Garry kneeled down beside her, she reached over and grabbed the brown chalk, and leaned down to the ground, nearly pressing her face into the black as she began to draw a half-oval with as much care as she could muster. Garry found himself chuckling at her antics, finding it to be quite cute.

"Is it done?" Garry asked when she leaned up and looked down intently at what appeared to be a brown half of an oval. She took a bit of white and added it to the drawing, making the flat end white.

"Bread is white on the inside, right?" She asked.

"A lot of them are, yes." He nodded.

"Ok! Then it's done!" She reached down, and Garry was able to brace himself for his still near-astonishment at how she could just lift it up and hand it over to him. When he took it into his hands, he gave it a small squeeze, and was again impressed with the strange rules of this world. The texture felt just like bread, and it even smelled like bread. With a shrug, he opened his mouth and bit into it.

"Ugh!" He covered his mouth, and dropped the bread.

"What's wrong?" Mary asked in concern, jumping to her feet and looking at him with concern, biting her bottom lip and tears beginning to pool at the bottom of her eyes, "You're not hurt, are you?!"

Garry forced himself to swallow, and he started to gag a bit, but he looked over to Mary and forced a smile on his face, "I'm…" He coughed again, and Mary could see what looked like dust coming out of his mouth, "I'm fine. It just tasted like I was eating a block of chalk…" He coughed again, and a bunch of powdered chalk flew into the air.

"I'm sorry," She cried, tears beginning to come down from her eyes, "I didn't know! Please don't leave me!"

"Mary…" He looked over to her with a stern look, "It'll take a lot more than that to make me leave. Like you said, you didn't know. I'm not going to leave you for something like that."

She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, and he obliged her by hugging her right back. Again, he found himself pitying the poor girl who was deathly afraid of her new friend leaving her all alone. A new feeling crossed his mind though, an unsettling feeling. Did she do something to upset a previous person and they left because of it? Is that why she got so frightened when she thought he was hurt? He put that thought in the back of his mind for now, not wanting to distress the girl beside him at the moment.

"We still need to get you something to eat…" She mumbled as she let go of him. She wiped her eyes, and forced a smile on her face.

"Yeah, that would be nice." He admitted, reaching down and picking up the chalk, "Let's drop this in your room and go looking around, maybe we can find something somewhere else?"

"Maybe." Mary sniffled a bit, wiping the rest of her tears away, "Wait! I know where to go!"

"Oh?"

"Maybe my older sister will know!"

"You have a sister?" He asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise, "I didn't know."

"Well, not really a sister." Mary crossed her arms, "I just call her that because she is really cool and talks to me whenever I'm feeling too lonely!"

"Who – or what – is she?"

"She's a painting like me," Mary replied, "She likes to wear red a lot, and –"

"Oh no," Garry placed his hand on his forehead, "You don't mean The Lady in Red?"

"Huh?" Mary looked at him, "Lady in Red? Well, she does wear red, and she is a lady, so I guess you could call her that."

"Y – You do realize that she was trying to kill Ib and I earlier?" He asked hesitantly.

"What?" Mary gasped, "She wouldn't do that! My big sister is way too nice to do something like that!"

"I'm sure…" Garry mumbled, "But… Maybe we shouldn't go so see her?"

"Well…" Mary averted her eyes, "I don't know where to get you food… Unless if you… go away…" She whispered the last bit.

Garry sighed, and realized that maybe they really didn't have a choice after all, "Well… I suppose we can go ask."

Mary's resulting smile made him feel slightly better, but only slightly. He was still going to go confront the woman who had only earlier crawled after them, and was screaming at them to die and cursing him and Ib's life. Yeah… This probably wasn't going to end very well, was it? He shuddered, and tried to think of more comforting thoughts.

Well, if there could be a real rose in the exhibit, then surely they could somehow find real food in here.

He and Mary stopped in her room really fast to deposit the chalk that they had used, and Mary then took hold of his hand, and led him back out of the house and up some stairs that he could have sworn was not there before. Mary didn't seem to really notice or care, and soon they were running back up the darkened halls and into the exhibit once more in search of food.

XxXxXxX

It was very odd to be walking in the same place where he and Ib had been running for their lives, but unlike before, the halls weren't filled with any monsters, in fact, they were completely empty. He looked to the left and right, and all he could see was the white walls of the darkened gallery he had appeared in earlier that day, nothing was there, and there wasn't even a single sound at all. Truthfully, this was beginning to frighten him more than if there were monsters in here, at least then he'd know what to avoid.

"Are you ok?" Mary asked, looking over her shoulder at Garry, "You're mumbling to yourself."

"Ah, am I?" He forced out a chuckle, "So, uh, where is your big sister anyway?"

"She should be around here somewhere," Mary muttered, turning her head back facing forward, and she crossed her arms, "Unless if they're avoiding me, again…"

"I doubt that's the case," Garry comfortingly placed his hand on the small girl's shoulder, and she gave him a grateful smile in return.

"You're right! I'm sure they are just off doing something important, we just got to find them!"

"That's the spirit!" Garry encouraged her, throwing his fist into the air along with her. Mary started to giggle and continued to lead them through the dark halls after that.

He was amazed at how unfazed Mary was by the imagery in this place. He felt oppressed, closed in, as if he was being watched, and generally every unsettling feeling he could think of. Mary however, was practically skipping ahead of him, a wide smile on her face and she was humming something that was way out of tune. It was simply bizarre to see such a massive contrast between Mary and the rest of the gallery – how did she end up the way she did when this was the place she had been around all her life?

"I'll kill you!" He heard a screech coming down from a long hallway to his left, and to his absolute horror, he saw the manic eyes of the Lady in Red, halfway out of her painting, using her arms to crawl towards him.

"Crap!" He jumped away from the crazed woman, "Mary! I don't think your plan is going to work!"

"This is good! She came to us!" Mary, to Garry's surprise and horror, actually ran towards the menacing painting, and she threw her arms around the woman's neck, "Hello! I wanted to talk to you!"

The woman in red blinked a few times, and looked to Mary, "Dear, I'm a bit busy, can it wait?"

"Don't hurt Garry, he's my friend!"

"What?"

"He said he'd stay in here with me!"

"Did he now?" The Lady in Red looked to Garry, and he saw that instead of the crazed look from earlier, she now had a calculating gaze, and she finally turned back to Mary, "Are you sure he's willing to stay with you? You remember how many other people promised you the same thing…"

Wait, there were others? Garry wanted to ask more about that, but he couldn't bring himself to do it, since he was unaware if the woman was an enemy or not, so he kept his question to himself and stayed silent.

"I'm sure!" Mary nodded, "He wouldn't lie to me."

"He'd better not…" The painting glared at him, "He'll regret it if he does."

Garry swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. While he didn't intend on leaving Mary, the murderous stare that was directed at him almost made him want to go into a corner and hide for the rest of his life. However, both his resolve and dignity wouldn't allow him to do that, and he met the portraits steady gaze with his own.

The Lady in Red smiled, "Can you give me a moment, dear?"

"Ok," Mary nodded, and Garry watched as the woman disappeared in her painting again.

"I thought you said everyone in the gallery avoided you." Garry brought up, walking up slowly towards Mary, still eyeing the painting that was face down on the ground now.

"Almost everyone does, but my big sister here is the only one who won't run from me." Mary clarified, smiling at the thought, "She keeps me company when I'm feeling really sad."

"I see." Garry mumbled, and then he noticed the painting shaking a bit, and he backed up a few paces, "What's going on?"

"Can you help me with this?" He heard a muffled voice from under the painting, and Mary went over and grabbed the edges of the painting and lifted it up, and Garry saw a foot leaving the painting, and then another foot, and then long shapely legs (he at least had the decency to look away), followed by her body, hands, and then head. Where once the woman reached halfway out of the portrait, she now stood outside of it fully, reaching a height just a few inches shorter than he was. The Lady in Red was quite a looker too, and he had to force his eyes to stay on her face, lest he ignite her wrath. At least her red dress was very modest, and didn't show off too much of her skin.

"Big sis!" Mary cheered, and hugged the woman.

"Hello Mary, so this guy here is your new friend?"

"Sure is!" Mary turned around, "Garry, this is my big sis, big sis, this is Garry!" She handled the introductions, and smiled.

"Hello, Garry." The woman eyed him curiously.

"Hello, uh, Lady in Red." He couldn't think of anything else to call her.

"Just call me Red for simplicities sake," The woman sighed, "I'm not old enough to be called a lady. Honestly…" She grumbled.

"S – Sorry. It's just the name of your painting, is all." He claimed, "I didn't mean to offend you."

"Stop acting all scared around me, I'm not going to hurt you… For now."

"So all of that stuff you were doing earlier was just an act then?" Garry asked.

"Frightening strangers who fall in here is fun." The woman shrugged.

"The Lady in Blue nearly killed me!" He cried, "She was destroying my rose!"

Red gave him a bored look, "Blue is… odd. If you ever run into her, just be careful. Actually, all of my sisters are weird. Just avoid them if you have to, alright? And if they do start chasing you, just find me or Mary, and we can keep them off your back."

"I'll keep that in mind…" Garry mumbled.

Red then turned and looked down to Mary, "So why did you want to see me?"

"Why? O – Oh!" Mary's eyes lit up in realization, "That's right, we need food!"

"Food?" Red repeated.

"That's right! Garry says that if he's going to stay, he needs to eat."

The woman gave Garry another glare, "Are you just using this as a way to get out?"

"No!" Garry spoke more forcefully than he intended to, but it definitely got Red's attention. The woman's eyes widened in surprise, and he noticed a smile crossing her face.

"That's good then. I wonder though, why do you think I can help you find any food?"

"Because my rose is real," Garry pointed out reasonably, "And the water in the vases around here is also real. That means there should be some way to transfer food here that is real, right?"

"True," Red noted.

"So will you help us?" Mary asked.

"For you, of course." She pinched Mary's cheek affectionately, causing the girl to jerk away, and rub her cheek. Red laughed at Mary's antics, and stood up to her full height, looking around the gallery, "You two may not know this, but every painting in here is a way to access the other world. Of course, only one painting would allow you to cross over, but with the others, you may still reach through and grab something."

"Is that right?" Garry asked, feeling less frightened by the brown-haired woman in front of him, since she was willingly helping them now.

Red nodded, and turned to look at him again, "That's right. Here, I'll lead you two to one that I know can provide you with food."

Mary grabbed Garry's hand, and looked up to him with excitement glimmering in her eyes, "We can find food!"

"We can," Garry acknowledged, "let's go."

And so the two followed Red through the gallery, and fortunately for Garry, no other murderous painting crossed their path. A few minutes later, the trio arrived at a painting depicting a kitchen with all sorts of food on display, and Garry couldn't help but feel his mouth start to water at the sight of all the food, even if it was just a painting. He hadn't had anything to eat for nearly an entire day now, and he wasn't going to be very picky about what he ate at this point.

"Alright, watch me." Red pushed her hand into the painting, and Garry let out a startled gasp as it just went through it like water, the painting even rippled as she did so. She rummaged for a little bit, and then pulled out a loaf of bread; similar to the one Mary had drawn earlier, except it was real. She handed the bread to Garry, "Try it."

He took the loaf, and ripped off a piece of bread and took a bite, and he hummed in delight as it tasted exactly like freshly baked bread. It was absolutely delicious!

"This is amazing!" He looked to the Lady in Red, "Thank you."

"It's no problem," Red answered, "Though you should be thanking Mary. If it weren't for her, I'd still be chasing you around."

"Thank you, Mary." He smiled at the little girl, causing her to blush at the praise, and she looked aside.

"It's all right." Mary muttered, but her eyes kept glancing back up at the bread he was eating, "Can I try some of that?"

"Sure." He broke off another piece, and handed it to the little girl.

Her eyes widened in delight as she held the bread, and she squeezed it a few times, her mouth forming an 'o' shape as she did so. Was this the first time she had even seen a real piece of bread, or food at all for that matter? Garry wasn't sure what to make of it, and he couldn't help but chuckle at the girl took a huge bite out of the bread – it looked as if she unhinged her jaw – and she started to chew. She was eyeing Garry as she did so, and he realized that she was mimicking him, since this was probably the first food she ever tried, so she was probably using him as an instruction on how to eat. When he swallowed, she did so too.

"How was it?" He couldn't help but ask. He was far too curious to know how a painting would taste real food.

"I don't know," She shook her head, "It was weird to chew something to smaller piece in my mouth, and then to swallow it is something I've never done before."

Ignoring any sexual innuendos that statement might bring to the forefront of his mind, Garry thought about it. So as a painting she lacked every sense it seemed except sight and hearing. He wished he could ask her more about it, but it seemed like any reminder that she was a painting and not real made her feel bad, and he didn't want to make her feel like that, especially with Red standing over her as protectively as she was doing now.

"Well, if that's all you two need, then I'll be gone. Garry, if you ever need anything, just come see me." Garry shivered at the sight of her amused smile, and watched as her figure moved down the hall, until she disappeared into the darkness.

"Good bye big sis!" Mary called out as the woman disappeared, and she turned to look at Garry, "So are you feeling better now?"

"Much better," He admitted, and he rubbed his eyes, "I'm a bit tired though."

It was true, he spent the entire day both running and screaming from the horrors in the gallery, and then after he had 'died' he barely got any rest, since he woke up shortly after and started to play with Mary. Honestly, the day was quite exhausting, and he looked forward to a rest, especially now since he was full.

"Let's go to bed then," Mary suggested, "Then tomorrow we can play some more!"

He noticed her eyes lighting up again at the idea of playing, and he smiled. Seeing the once lonely painting being so happy made him feel pretty good. She deserved to be happy after everything she had been through, especially since she had the chance to kill him and didn't take it. While there was a lingering thought in the back of his mind, wondering just how long he could stay, he didn't voice it, knowing that Mary wouldn't appreciate it. Instead, he allowed the excitable girl to grab his hand, and pull him down the winding hallways, and back down the stairs into the large black area she had created by herself.

"We're home!" She called out as the two entered the house she made for herself, and she made sure that she and Garry both took their shoes off. Afterwards, the two walked up the stairs at the opposite end of the building into her bedroom.

"So are we going to create a mat for me or something?" He asked, though from looking at the mess of her room, he wasn't exactly sure where to put a mat even if that was the plan.

"No, we can share the bed!" She smiled innocently at him.

"I see." He mumbled. Though she was still a child, it felt wrong, but… At this point he hardly cared, since he just wanted to rest. He let out a sigh, and gently got into her bed, feeling annoyed that his feet were going over the edge.

"Here, I can fix that." Mary claimed, grabbing a piece of chalk, and extending the end of the bed out by another foot, and she used her sleeve to erase the existing end.

Garry watched as she did that, and then his feet felt like they were on softer mater again. He was still awed by the magic in this world, and didn't know what to make of it, but he decided to smile at Mary, "Thanks."

"No problem!" She cheered, and she jumped into the bed right after, snuggling right into his side, practically burrowing herself into his side. Again, he wondered if she could feel his warmth, or if she just liked being close to people, but again he didn't want to ask, especially not now, since he was tired.

"Good night." He mumbled, closing his eyes.

"Good night!" Mary replied back.

Shortly after, the two were fast asleep.


	3. The Prince and the Princess

The Prince and the Princess

Garry was still having quite a hard time adjusting to life in the painting, and while he could eat and drink everything he needed now, he still avoided the other denizens of the world like the plague, even those that were proven to be friendly. Mary meanwhile, had been very excitable every day, and she would mimic him whenever he was eating. While it was cute initially, she did do something he wasn't quite fond of…

It was now the seventh day since he had been in there, an entire week. It was in the morning – or what he assumed was morning, time was difficult to tell in this world – and he was eating some breakfast he had pulled through the painting. Fortunately, he could pull through plates and other silverware, and he was able to eat a proper meal this time. Sure it was a simple meal of scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast, but it was far superior to simply eating bread. They would always lean against the gallery wall whenever they ate, and this was no exception.

As usual, every time he reached in for food, he'd always have to make sure to get enough for him and Mary, since Mary would always insist on eating with him, whether it was because she thought it made her seem more human, or because she enjoyed it, he didn't really know, but he would always oblige her request. He got her the same meal as he got for himself, and the girl, for the moment, was cooing at the eggs, saying how cute they were. What an odd girl…

"They're scrambled eggs, Mary." Garry pointed out, "How does that make them cute?"

"They look so fluffy!" She exclaimed, poking it with her finger and giggling at the same time. Her eyes looked up at Garry, and she gave him a bright smile, before returning to play with her food.

Garry shook his head, "You're a weird girl, Mary." She opted to ignore him, and continued to play with her food, until he started to eat his meal. As if on cue, Mary stopped playing, and locked her eyes onto him, and lifted a piece of the eggs up to her mouth with the fork she was holding, and started to chew when Garry did so. Garry's eye twitched – this was what he wasn't so fond of, she wouldn't chew with her mouth closed. "Mary…" He muttered, after he had swallowed.

"Yes?" She asked as she mimicked him, swallowing her food. She again smiled brightly at him, her innocent blue eyes looking excited at what he was going to ask her.

"Can you close your mouth when you chew?" He asked politely.

"It's open?" She asked, "Is that a bad thing?" She dropped her fork on her plate and brought her hand up to her mouth, opening and closing it a few times. She then sent a questioning look to Garry as she did so.

"Well, it's really gross to see you chewing up the food, and it is really bad table manners." He explained to it, looking towards the ceiling as he recounted several things, "Always have your napkin in your lap, always chew with your mouth closed…"

"Table manners?" Mary repeated back to him, her eyes lighting up, "What's that?" She set aside her plate, and she crawled the short distance between them, and Garry could swear he almost felt the excitement radiating off of the girl. The idea of learning something seemed to be a huge motivator for Mary, Garry assumed, since she was leaning so close to him on her hands.

"It's how you should act when you're at the table," he explained to her, returning to his original train of thought, "Just a bunch of ways to be polite." He tried to shape out a table with his hands, but gave up when Mary frowned in confusion still.

"What's _the_ table?" She asked, putting a large emphasis on the world 'the'. He realized immediately that the way he made it sound probably made her think that this table was significant, so he quickly explained that it wasn't the case.

"The table is just wherever you decide to eat, so I guess it doesn't necessarily have to be called _table _manners per se, but it's basically some guidelines on how to act when eating at a table, or, really, anywhere with other people." He tried to explain to her, and he watched her nodding slowly, as if she were a sponge absorbing the information.

"So… I can chew with my mouth open when I'm alone?" She asked, looking aside, only the corner of her eye looking at him. He could see that she still seemed faintly confused, and she was looking away, since she didn't know the answer.

"Well," He chuckled at her antics, "Preferably not, since you should always chew with it closed." He reached over and pat her on the head, "The more you do it, it'll just come naturally to you." She allowed him to pat her head a couple times, and she turned her head back to look at him.

"This sounds hard." She mumbled, heaving herself off of her hands, and she leaned back onto her knees. She crossed her arms, and frowned, "Do I have to do it?"

"It's really not; it'll become second nature in no time." He told her, finally looking back down at the plate that rested in his lap. He went to take another bite, but was yet again interrupted by a hesitant Mary.

"Second… Nature?" She spoke both words aloud, looking a little embarrassed. When Garry glanced her way, she again averted her eyes, and her face grew a little red. Was she ashamed that she didn't know?

"It means that you'll figure it out in no time." He explained to her, "Mary… You can ask me anything. You don't need to be ashamed that you don't know, you know." He tried to make her feel better by smiling.

"Thank you." She mumbled, still keeping her eyes averted, and her face was still red, but for different reasons now. She shook her head, and looked back over to him, and then touched her mouth, "I guess I can try closing my mouth when I chew." He nodded, and took a bite out of his toast this time, and watched Mary mimic him, and when he started to chew, Mary – true to her word – tried to keep her mouth closed, but just puckered up her lips instead, and he nearly choked on his food at how ridiculous she looked. He brought a hand up to his mouth, and started to cough, and the whole time, Mary was mimicking him, coughing into her hand. This only served to make the situation even more ridiculous, and Garry started to laugh even harder. "Are you ok?" She asked, after he was done coughing, and he calmed down enough to actually swallow his food, "Is that all part of keeping your mouth closed?"

"I'm fine," He answered her first question, and then looked at her with a very amused smile, "Though that wasn't part of keeping your mouth closed, I was just… coughing."

"So did I do it right?" She asked, her hands gripping the sides of her plate tightly as she asked. She didn't smile as she looked at Garry, instead she gave him an almost calculating look – one that Garry interpreted as her willingness to learn.

"No." He shook his head, still giving her an amused look, "Far from it, in fact." He chuckled a little bit, his mind going back to Mary trying to mimic him, and he had to force down the laughter he felt coming up for a second.

She huffed up her cheeks and crossed her arms, "You were laughing at me then!" She looked away from him, and she refused to look over even when he started talking.

"Yeah, I was." He admitted, "You looked way too adorable doing that." He noticed that she wasn't looking his way, or even acknowledging what he was saying, so he reached forth and poked her cheek a few times, "Hey, you'll get it."

"Well, it's hard!" She exclaimed, looking over at him, a frown covering her entire face. She seemed almost… distressed that she couldn't do this properly. Garry reached forward and gently pat her head to try and calm her down.

"I never thought about how hard it was, or that it was even hard to begin with," He admitted, continuing to pat her head. Though she felt nothing, it was clearly having an effect, since she was beginning to calm down. "Here, before we eat anymore, let's practice this, ok?"

"Ok!" She nodded eagerly, her frown disappearing and she again looked excited. She again leaned forward on her hands, and he saw the determined look on her face once more.

"Now, just close your mouth like this, ok?" He simply closed his mouth like any other normal person. She mimicked the action quickly. "Ok, now, with your mouth still closed, move your jaw up and down." He demonstrated by biting down a few times with his mouth open, and then doing it a few times with his mouth closed. Mary did the same thing – first with her mouth opened, and then doing it with her mouth closed.

"I think I can do it now!" She claimed, gripping her fists in determination. She looked down at her plate with the food, and picked it up, eyeing the food like she would an enemy. Garry shook his head, and looked to his own food, piercing the eggs with his fork, and he yet again saw Mary mimic his action.

"Alright, here's your final test then, good luck." He took a bite of his eggs, and watched Mary take a bite of them too, and this time she didn't pucker her lips, but casually closed her mouth, and began to chew as he was. When he swallowed, she mimicked him again, and he gave her a warm smile, "Good work." He even set the plate down on his lap so he could politely clap for her.

"Thank you!" She cheered, "I learned something new!" She was so excited that she jumped towards them, and wrapped her arms around him. Garry quickly set his food down before she did that, so she at least didn't knock it aside, and he held her as she landed on him. He didn't know it was actually possible to hear someone smile, but she seemed to be so happy that she was humming.

Garry let out a relieved sigh, "Well, mission accomplished; now I'm going to go ahead and enjoy these eggs. Make sure you never eat with your mouth open again, ok?" He pat her on the back a few times, and she seemed to only radiate more happiness from his approval.

"Ok!" She nodded as she held him, and she finally let him go, and went back to her own plate. This time whenever she ate the food, she would make sure to eat with her mouth closed, as Garry had taught her, and he even caught a few times when she didn't mimic him when she was eating. Garry kept that in mind, wondering just how much Mary was willing to learn.

After that the two finished up eating, and they put their dishes back through the painting, Mary decided that instead of playing with the chalk in the black room, she wanted Garry to read her stories in the library. Garry was more than glad to do this, because he was honestly getting a bit tired of drawing with chalk, and he just couldn't keep up with the energy of a nine year old. While Mary did seem to understand this, she was still noticeably put off whenever he claimed that he was getting tired. Still, to her credit, she never did whine whenever he said that.

Now she was leading him down the long dark hallways like before, and as usual he still felt a chill as he went down these halls, though the chill was slowly going away with every day he spent in there. He had even met a few more of the denizens of the world, he could clearly remember a few days ago when Mary had introduced him to the mannequins. He didn't even realize that those things were even alive! But when he reached out to shake its hand (at Mary's insistence), he had nearly jumped through the roof when it reached forward and politely shook his hand. He didn't think he would ever get used to this place.

"We're here!" Mary called out as she opened a door in the hallway that led to a room that was filled to the brim with shelves and shelves of books. Wherever Garry's eyes wandered, there were books, and the shelves were at least twice the height of him. By the door, he saw a ladder that was probably meant to get the books higher up, and beside that he saw a light switch on the wall. When he flipped it, he was absolutely astonished to see that the room actually lit up, and for the first time in a while, his eyes had to adjust to a bright source of light.

"I didn't expect that to work!" He cried out, covering his eyes. He continually tried to peak out between his fingers to try and adjust to the light, but a week of near darkness was taking its toll on him.

"Garry?" Mary cried out, "Are you ok?" She gripped his coat, and looked up at him with worried eyes, "Why are you doing that? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," He answered the near panicked girl, reaching down with his eyes squinted and patting her on the head to try and calm her down. He slowly uncovered his eyes, and blinked a few more times before saying, "It's just really bright in here."

Mary frowned, not looking entirely convinced yet. She still had a tight grip on his coat, and she looked up worriedly and asked, "So light affects your eyesight?"

"If you've been in darkness for a while, and then you suddenly go out into the light, then yes, it does." He wiped his eyes, and opened them wide, still blinking a few times, shaking his head as he adjusted. He finally looked down at Mary, the girl still gripping his coat tightly so he smiled, "See, I'm all better now. There's no need to be worried."

"Oh…" Mary mumbled, slowly letting go of his coat, and then she looked down to the floor dejectedly, "It didn't affect me at all…" She seem to find the wall very interesting to look at, since her eyes focused solely on that.

Crap. He didn't want to remind her about her situation, so he quickly coughed into his hand and straightened up. "So, what book did you want me to read to you?" He asked her, trying to get her mind off of the fact that she was a painting and not a real person. Thankfully, she behaved like the child she looked like, and she reacted positively. Her frown disappeared, and she smiled over to Garry excitedly, as if she had forgotten what had just made her sad for a moment, and she darted into the columns of bookshelves, leaving him behind as she did so. "M – Mary?" He called out, "Where are you going?"

"Wait there!" She called back, though her voice sounded faint. Just how big was this room?! He couldn't even hear her footsteps anymore. He was left all alone in an unfamiliar place.

"O - ok." He called back, and he looked around some more. While the ladder was to the left of the door, when he looked to the right, he saw a small sitting area, where there was a couch, some chairs, and even a few beanbag chairs, and set in the middle of it all was a small table. It was the first bit of comfortable furniture he had seen in days, and it looked quite inviting, so he went over and sat down on the couch, and let out a loud and comfortable sigh as he sank into the couch.

"Hey! You're sitting on me!" Garry let out a very loud and girlish scream, and darted to his feet, and looked down to see that he had sat on one of those very creepy blue dolls that Mary adored so much. "Nice scream there, buddy." The doll remarked.

"Yeah, well, you frightened me." Garry muttered lamely, rubbing the back of his head, and taking a few steps back. With Mary gone, he wasn't sure what tricks the doll might pull. He finally sat across from it, his muscles tensed and he was ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

"So I see." The doll answered casually dusting off its dress, "I'm surprised to see that you're still here." Its red eyes looked up to Garry now, and he felt a shiver go down his spine.

"Here in this world?" Garry asked for clarification, leaning forward, actually a bit interested to hear what this doll had to say.

"What else would I mean?" The doll muttered, "Honestly…" It moved its head in a circle, and Garry wondered if that was supposed to imply that it was rolling its eyes, and it looked towards the wall, as if it were bored with Garry.

Ignoring the harsh tone, Garry decided to shrug, "It's not too bad." It wouldn't do to get on the bad side of this world's occupants, after all. He still kept a sharp eye on the doll as it giggled like a school girl.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure. You're merely a human, and you're stuck in a world with all sorts of things that terrify you." The doll moved its head to look directly at him now, and Garry felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising as it did so, "You're all anyone in here talks about anymore. My family even has bets going on for how long you'll stay."

"I see…" He mumbled. He felt somewhat insulted, and he narrowed his eyes ever so slightly at the doll. The doll seemed to pick up at Garry's feelings, however, and it quickly spoke.

"Don't worry, I'm betting that you'll stay for a long time!" It waved it arms, as if it were trying to calm Garry down. Garry blinked a few times – was the doll afraid of _him_?

"How long is that?" He asked, keeping the conversation on track. He might as well learn as much as he could while Mary was gone.

"A very long time!" The doll exclaimed, "The rest of my family said only a little while, or a long while at most, and now you've beaten almost all of them. You're really different. The other people Mary claimed were her friends only stay for a few hours, and then they left immediately when she went to sleep or they would push her down and run, or something like that."

"There were others?" Garry asked, leaning forward in interest, "When?"

"How am I supposed to know?" The doll shrugged. Though it noticed Garry's stare, and it quickly stated, "I really don't know, but it has been a _really _long time!"

"How many years was it?" Garry asked, trying to bleed as much information as possible. The doll seemed to be panicked now, and it looked like it was ready to bolt, sort of like how Garry was earlier.

"Year? I don't know what that is." The doll shook its head, "Look, I don't know." It insisted upon noticing Garry still staring at it. Garry finally relented once he deemed that it was telling the truth.

"You don't know what a year is…" Garry mumbled, leaning back in his seat and thinking, placing his hand on his chin. That actually made sense, since there were no clocks that seemed to work in this place. What need for knowing time would this world have? If he wasn't keeping a rudimentary count of the days himself, he'd be completely lost on the time and date.

"You mentioned a long and short while, how many of those has it been then?" Garry asked, trying to go by the dolls measurement of time.

"Um… A lot of long whiles. You've been here a long while." It explained, and Garry watched as it seemed to count by tapping the fabric of the couch it was one. A little bit later, it looked up, "Um, It has been at least… I dunno, over a thousand long whiles?"

"So if I've been here, according to you, for a long while, then that means one long while is a week, so over a thousand is…" A thousand weeks very roughly fills into ten years. So he at least knew it had been ten years since Mary had last had company. He was surprised that he felt anger welling up inside. If those people had just taken the time to get to know Mary, they would have found out that despite the fact that she was a painting, she was a very kind and loving girl – an overly energetic one, sure, but that was hardly a bad thing in any case.

"That's right!" The doll replied, "Look, I'm getting out of here before she comes back; I don't want to be here with her." It stood up, and started pacing around the couch, looking for a good spot to jump down from.

"Wait, why do you fear her – and me for that matter?" Garry lifted a hand, causing the doll to stop in place. He was amazed that he seemed to have that kind of command of the things, but he shook his head, deciding not to worry about that for now.

"Because she's the most powerful thing in here, and if we hurt you or upset you, then she'll get mad." The doll replied, giving him an odd look as it tilted its head sideways, "You don't fear her?"

"No." Garry shook his head, "She's a very kind girl." He smiled slightly at the thought, but stopped when he heard the thing start to giggle.

"Kind? Mary?" It chuckled some more, bringing both of its hands up to its stitched closed mouth like what he had said was the most funny thing he had ever heard. The doll then looked back to him, "You're an odd one, then."

"You shouldn't avoid her; it makes her sad whenever you do." Garry tried yet again to get the doll to understand. However, the doll just shook its head, and looked back down to the floor again.

"Heh, I didn't think I'd see the day when I'm being lectured by a human, of all things." It shook its head, kneeling down at the very edge of the couch.

"I'm being serious." Garry insisted, starting to get a bit ticked off. Emotions that he had hidden were coming up, especially since he realized that this doll seemed to fear him almost as much as it feared Mary.

"I know, and I'll think about it, but for now I'll leave you two alone." With that, the doll jumped down from the couch, and walked towards the still opened door to the library. It gave a final wave, and walked out, leaving Garry there to contemplate what he had learned.

"Garry!" Mary called as she rushed over to him, and he looked over towards the bookshelves to see Mary running at him with a very large stack of books. His mouth nearly fell open, but he realized that most of the books were children's books, and he calmed down, she dumped them onto the table

"Hey, it sure took you long enough." He shook his head, trying to get the unpleasant conversation out of his head as Mary jumped onto the couch opposite of him, and she patted at her side eagerly. He got the message, and stood up and went over to sit by her side.

"I didn't know what to have you read to me," Mary admitted at least looking slight embarrassed at the fact that she brought back way more books than he expected, "I wanted to read them all, so I just got them all!"

"I see." He chuckled, and he watched Mary lean forward to look at all the books she had set down, and finally she picked one, leaning back into the couch. She handed it to him eagerly, and he took it, read the title, and suppressed a chuckle.

"Is that one bad?" Mary asked, noticing that he was trying not to laugh. She frowned, hoping that she didn't pick a bad one… She liked the cover a lot, and it looked interesting to her at least.

"Not at all, in fact, it's quite good." He answered, "I didn't think there'd be any Dr. Seuss books in here. That's all." He honestly didn't know what to expect in the gallery, but he at least should have begun to expect the unexpected now.

She smiled, "Read it to me then!" She leaned at his side as he opened to the first page, and he started to read the short story to her. As he was reading, a thought did cross his mind that Mary was perhaps a bit too old to be reading this – it wasn't to say that Dr. Seuss couldn't be enjoyed by all ages, but Mary certainly acted a lot younger than she appeared – she would lean heavily on his side and point out the pictures she found to be funny, and if he didn't know any better, he would say that her reading skills were quite lacking, since whenever he had kindly asked her to read a few lines here and there, she couldn't seem to read the book very well or at all in some instances.

"Mary," He muttered after they had gotten through the third book that evening. Since the books she had picked were quite short, he could go through them pretty quickly. He would have moved even quicker if Mary hadn't been so keen on pointing out bits that she liked, but that is what made reading to children fun in the first place. He set that thought aside however, and spoke, "I want to ask you a question."

The girl was having the time of her life, and she smiled up at him, "What is it?" She was practically making a spot for herself in his side, and she was curled up, immensely enjoying the stories he was reading her.

"That diary I found in your room, did you write all of that?" He asked, and he saw her happy mood completely evaporate.

"Y – Yeah, I did, why do you ask?" She got defensive and looked down to the floor. Garry could tell that this was a very sore subject for the girl, but he had to know, so he pressed on.

"Did you have help with it?" He asked kindly, reaching around and rubbing her shoulder comfortingly. Like before, though she couldn't feel it, it did seem to have a calming effect on it. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she just liked company and liked it when people were kind to her? In any case, he waited for her answer.

"Yeah, I forced some of the dolls to help me spell." She grumbled after a few seconds. Her good mood now completely gone and her lips seem to almost be trembling.

"I see." He replied, realizing that he might want to stop pursuing the subject now. It was surprising then, that it was Mary who asked the next question.

"Why did you want to know?" She whispered it so quietly he barely made it out. One of her hands had a near death grip on his coat, and her eyes were shadowed from him.

"I'm just wondering what your skills are at." He answered honestly, "Since I'm going to be staying here, I think I might start to teach you to read and write." He smiled when he noticed her reaction – she had not expected that at all.

Her eyes widened and she glanced up. Her death grip started to disappear, and her mouth fell open, and she just open and closed it like a fish before finally finding her voice and asking, "You'd do that?"

"Yeah," He nodded, "I might as well. Reading is a skill that will serve you well for your entire life, and writing is also very important, or at the very least, knowing how to spell words is definitely a good thing to know." He explained to it, and he noticed from the corner of his eyes that her once distant and cold eyes were now beginning to shine with delight.

She smiled so wide that Garry wondered if that would hurt if she were real, and her mood was now rapidly improving, "I want to learn now!" She exclaimed.

"We'll start tomorrow," He assured her, giving her a small pat on the head, a habit he realized that he was quickly growing into. Mary didn't seem to mind the pats however, since she almost acted like a cat – closing her eyes and leaning into it whenever he did it. He then stated, "We can use the chalk to help us."

She crossed her arms, "Fine…" It was clear that she was disappointed that he wasn't willing to teach her how to do it _now_, but he was again proud that she wasn't pushing him to do it. Most other kids would beg and cry until they got what they wanted, but Mary was more mature than that.

"How about I let you pick out the next story?" He decided to say, since she was acting mature for her age, and accepting that it will happen tomorrow. It would be a sort of reward, and she seemed to view it as such too.

She grinned, "Ok!" She reached forward to the pile of books that she brought over, and picked out an interesting one, "This one! Red read this to me once, and I liked it a whole lot!"

"Sleeping Beauty, huh?" He remarked, "It's a pretty long one, are you up for it?" He flipped through the pages, blinking in surprise. This was longer than he imagined it would be. It wasn't novel length, but for a children's story, it was a very nice length.

"I'm up to it! Read it!" She insisted, again practically attaching herself to his side, and wrapping her arms around him. He chuckled, and opened the book, and started to read the tale of a princess who was cursed to fall into a deep sleep if she pricked her finger on a spindle. Unlike before, Mary was very quiet as he read her the story, and while she would still point out the pictures, she would mostly be intently listening to him reading. When he got to the end, when the prince woke up the princess by kissing her, she broke out into a wide smile.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked, breaking away from the story when he noticed her grinning. It wasn't an entirely uncharacteristic sight, Mary liked to smile a lot, but since she had been so quiet for the entire story, the difference was noticeable.

"I'm just thinking that this reminds me of you and me." She answered him, pointing to him and then herself.

"How do you figure that?" He asked as he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"Because you decided to stay with me, and not leave me to be alone forever," She replied, giving him the brightest and widest smile he had seen the girl ever display. That was accompanied by the tightest hug she had ever given him, and she pressed her face into his chest. In a way, that did fit. He rescued her from her intense loneliness, and now she was having more fun and joy than she had probably experienced in her entire time here. He felt his own smile coming, and he gave the girl a gentle pat on the head, and continued to read the story, getting to the conclusion when the prince and princess marry each other.

"And they lived happily ever after," He finished, closing the book, "The end." He looked over to Mary who was still smiling – she had been ever since the prince decided to help the princess.

"I like that story a lot!" She exclaimed, clapping her hands, giggling as well. She seemed so innocent… It was very hard for Garry to imagine her as a painting, and not as the girl she acted like.

"It was good, wasn't it?" He replied, setting the book down on the table, and leaning back, resting his hands on his lap as he looked over to Mary.

"It was very good!" She claimed, "Do you think we'll be like them?"

"Married?" He laughed at that and shook his head, "I don't think so, but I promise I'll be your friend as long as possible."

She felt a pang of… something, when he said that, but she couldn't identify it. She decided to ignore it, and instead she got up and stated, "It's almost lunch time now, right?" She looked over to the door, and then back to Garry questioningly.

"I suppose it is," He answered, "Though I don't really know, since there are no clocks in here." He looked around the walls to be sure that there were no clocks. Seeing that there weren't any, he shrugged, and looked back to Mary.

"Are you hungry?" She asked. Since she didn't have to eat, she could tell whether he'd be hungry or not unless if she asked him, or unless she heard that silly rumbling noise coming him his stomach.

"A little," He admitted, standing up and stretching, cracking his neck as he swung it side to side. He looked down and noticed that Marry, like when he was eating, had decided to copy the gesture, despite the fact that she wouldn't be able to feel anything.

"Let's go eat!" She cheered after she finished stretching with Garry, and she went to walk towards the door, looking back at Garry to make sure that he was following her. He took a few paces and then stopped.

He reached a hand into his coat pocket, blinking in surprise. He looked down, and pulled out his lighter, "Huh, you know, I wish I had some cigarettes. Do you think I could pull some out of the pictures around here?" He looked up when he got no reply. "Mary?" He turned around, and saw that the girl had gone completely still. Her eyes were intently trained on the lighter he had pulled out. He blinked a few times in confusion, and moved the lighter to the left and right and watched as Mary's eyes tracked it the entire time, "Mary, what's up?"

"Put that away!" She hissed, her mannerism returning somewhat to how she acted when she was actively chasing him and Ib about a week ago. Any warmth she displayed towards him was gone, and she backed up a few paces, her muscles tensed, like a threatened cat.

"The lighter? Why?" He looked at it, trying to discern some reason as to why Mary would be afraid of it, but he wasn't able to come up with anything. It wasn't like the flame could cause any real damage.

"It's fire!" Mary cried, taking another few paces back, "P – Put it away! Throw it away! Something! Don't come near me!" Her threatening demeanor earlier must have been an act, because when he took another few steps forward, she started to look frightened.

"What?" His mouth fell open, "You're afraid of fire?" He honestly couldn't comprehend how someone could be almost deathly afraid of the stuff.

"I'm a painting, remember?" She spat out, "fire and paper go together – the result is ash!" Tears threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes, and she glared at him as intensely as she could, though she still looked very frightened.

His eyes widened, "Oh, crap!" He quickly shoved the lighter into his pocket, getting it out of sight, and he took a step towards Mary, but the girl stepped back at his advance, her eyes glaring directly at him now.

"Were you planning on using that on me?!" She yelled, "Stay away!" She suddenly backed up into a wall, and looked fearfully towards him, realizing that she was now trapped.

"No!" He exclaimed, "Of course not! Mary, you know I wouldn't do that to you!" He didn't want her to go into her fight or flight response – that would end very badly, "Mary… Please, you have to believe me."

She was still eyeing him warily, but he saw her muscles beginning to relax, and she stood up straight, instead of looking like she was about to bolt, "Why do you have that then?"

"Because I smoked when I was out of here," He explained, "It's just something I do to relieve stress, nothing else." He tried to explain, feeling a huge ball in his stomach. He dearly hoped the girl believed him – he wanted to help her, not drive her away!

"Smoked?" She repeated, still not coming closer, but she no longer looked as afraid as before.

"You light this stick-thing on fire and put it in your mouth, and it creates smoke." He tried to explain, wishing he had one to just show her. Instead he just mimicked the motion, though it was probably a useless effort, since Mary wouldn't understand it.

She frowned, "That sounds dumb." She crossed her arms, her mannerism and actions slowly returning to the kind little girl she was before this horrible encounter.

He chuckled, despite the tense situation, "It kind of is, but I was stupid when I was a kid and started up even though I knew the risks."

Mary fully relaxed now, and her eyes looked down, "Oh… Sorry for yelling at you." She wrapped her arms around her body, as if she were trying to hug herself to keep warm.

"Here, would you like to hold onto it?" He offered, slowly drawing it out so he didn't frighten her. She still eyed it with fright, but she took a few steps forward this time.

"Are you sure?" She mumbled, reaching forward to touch the metallic surface. She of course didn't feel it, but that didn't stop her from shuddering at the sight of it.

"Would it make you feel better if I didn't have it anymore?" Garry asked, still holding onto the lighter as he watched Mary continue to eye it.

"Yes." She answered honestly, "I – I know you're nice but… I don't like fire. At all." Her lips trembled, and she averted her eyes from him, "I like you, but…"

"Don't worry about it, I understand." He smiled kindly to her, "Take it then." He handed her the lighter, and she visibly tensed up again as she took hold of it with only two fingers, as if the cool metal burned her fingers, and she stuffed it into her pocket. She still looked distinctly uncomfortable with it even being on her person however.

"I'm going to throw it away." She warned him, eyeing him warily still. He made no action to get it back, so she again relaxed a bit more.

"Fair enough," He shrugged, "As long as you can trust me, I'm fine with that." He knelt down to her level so he could look her in the eyes, "Mary, I'm very sorry."

She again felt a weird new feeling she honestly had never felt before when he said he wanted her to trust him, and when he apologized to her. The fact that he gave her the lighter reinforced the feeling. Deciding not to waste any more time trying to identify the feeling, she smiled brightly up at Garry, "I'm sorry. You're way too nice to hurt me, I shouldn't have thought so little of you." She walked forward and wrapped her arms around his neck as her own apology.

He grinned, very glad to see her returning back to how she was earlier, and he wrapped his arms around her as well, "It's no problem, I needed to quit anyway, so I guess now is as good a time as any."

When they parted, she looked towards the door, "Then… Let's go eat!" She held out her hand to him, and he smiled as he took hold of it. He was very glad they had gotten through that the way they did, it could have done irreparable damage to their relationship if it had gone wrongly.

"I'm ok with that." He declared, and the two left the library together, leaving the pile of books there for later use.

XxXxXxX

Notes:

I'd like to thank kazikamikaze24 for helping me become a much better writer. While not amazing, this chapter is probably ten times better now than it would have been due to his input. This chapter more than DOUBLED in length because I added in a lot of detail he explained was missing from my previous chapters, so I hope this comes off more as a story and less of a script! Thank you a ton!

With that being said, please give me any criticisms you have! I do listen, and if it's really good advice, I will definitely use it!

Now I'm going to go ahead and revise all my older stories into this format - the first two chapters of Years Gone By have already been altered (and are much more improved too, might I add). I'll also be revising the first two chapters of this story as well, but this is a REALLY time consuming process. You'd think that since it's already written, it would be easy, but it's like writing a whole new chapter!

Anyway, thank you for reading!


	4. First Lessons

First Lessons

Garry wasn't really sure even where to begin with his lesson for Mary. Though he did tell her that he would teach her to read and write, he was far from an English teacher, and what made things even worse was that he didn't even know how to teach a child to start reading. He could vaguely remember that reading to a child is one of the best ways for them to learn, but did that apply to Mary, since she was nine years old, or was it too late for her to learn that way? He wished he could just teach her to draw, that would be so much easier for him…

"Garry?" He heard Mary speak up to his right, and his eyes refocused on the dark hallway they were in, and he looked down to his breakfast he was eating, "Are you there?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," He shook his head out of the daze he was in, and took a piece of toast and munched on it.

Mary fortunately was finally starting to eat on her own, without mimicking Garry's every single action, and she lifted her fork to eat some of the eggs. When she swallowed, she smiled and looked back over to him, "I can't wait to learn to read and write! Are you almost done?"

"Yeah, "He nodded, "I'm actually not that hungry." He put the toast back down and put his head against the wall, letting out a long sigh.

"Are you feeling sick?" Mary asked, a frown crossing her face.

"No," He shook his head and smiled towards her to try and alleviate her worries, "I'm just lost in thought."

"Lost in thought?" She muttered the words, tilting her head.

"Thinking – I'm just thinking." He clarified, remembering that Mary didn't understand many of the idioms that he used. Maybe he could teach her those too, though when he actually tried to think of sayings like that, he couldn't remember any. That was quite annoying.

"Oh, Ok! What are you thinking about?" She set aside her own plate and crawled towards him, with her eyes shining, "Is it about what you're gonna teach me?"

"Yes, actually. I'm wondering how to start our lessons together." He answered honestly, "I'm not an English teacher, so I honestly don't know where to begin."

"How did you learn?"

"I don't really remember that much," He admitted, "I remember in fourth grade I pulled aside a teacher and tried to read a Goosebumps book, but other than that, I kind of just started to catch on and learn it naturally."

"What's Goosebumps?" She giggled as she said it, and started to repeat it, "Goose… Bumps. Goose, bumps…"

"It's a series of books that are supposed to be scary." He chuckled, "They're meant for children, of course, and I never thought that they were particularly scary at all, but the stories were always pretty creative and fun, it might be a good idea for you to start reading those when you are at a higher reading level."

"I wanna read it!" She declared, "You need to teach me to read and write soon!"

"I know," He nodded absently, "I guess we could start now, let's just put these dishes away and head out to that, uh, black room with some chalk." He went to get up, but Mary darted to her feet first, and took his dish with the half-eaten food on it, and shoved it into the painting, and then reached forward and grabbed his hand, her eyes shining with barely contained excitement.

"Let's go! Let's go!" She exclaimed, pulling his hand, almost making him trip as he stumbled on the first few steps.

"You're pretty excited!" He laughed as the little girl dragged him down the hall, and then down the stairs towards the town Mary drew. She dragged him into her room, and picked up all sorts of differently colored chalk, forcing them in his arms as she did so, and then she finally rushed outside next to her 'house', where there was nothing drawn on the ground yet.

"Teach me!" She turned to him, and took a seat on the black ground. While she was demanding, Garry did find it to be somewhat cute. She was so eager and excited to learn, he could practically see the excitement glowing from her.

Garry kneeled down and dropped the pile of chalk onto the ground, and sat down across from Mary, and rubbed his chin in thought. After a few seconds he finally asked, "So… Do you know your ABC's then?"

"Yeah!" She nodded quickly, "That's easy!"

"Ok, so you know the song?" He asked another question. He didn't know whether this was the best place to start, but assumed that knowing all twenty-six letters of the alphabet would be an excellent place to start learning to read.

"A, B, C, D, E, F…" She started singing it in the correct tune, and after a few seconds, she ended with, "X, Y, and Z, now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with me!" She looked at him with a wide smile, "How was that?"

"Huh, who taught you that?" He asked curiously. He didn't think any of the paintings would help her with something like that, and she couldn't have read it from a book, since she lacked the necessary skill to do so.

"I – I…" She paused, "I don't want to talk about it…" She looked down to the ground with a large frown.

He could see that she was starting to get distressed as thought about the memory, so he loudly coughed into his hand to get her attention back onto him, "Well, this is good, you know the twenty-six letters of the alphabet then, so… I guess the next step is to write them down."

"So you want me to write them down with the chalk?" She pointed to the big pile they brought out, and he nodded his head. She immediately went for the chalk and looked at him again.

"I vaguely remember doing something like that in kindergarten." He then motioned his head towards the chalk, "Yeah, just write down the letters for now."

"Ok," She nodded, and grabbed a piece of chalk, and leaned forward on her knees, "A…" She drew an uppercase A, "B…" She drew an uppercase B. Before she could move on to do C however, Garry spoke up.

"Hold on." He stopped her, "Make sure you also do the lowercase version of each letter too."

"Lowercase?" She repeated, looking back at him with a blank expression. Garry actually blinked a few times in surprise.

"Huh, you don't know about lowercase?"

She shook her head, "The alphabet book in the library only showed these letters. You mean there's more?"

"There are only twenty-six of them, and you're right, those are A and B, but you need to know lowercase. In fact, I'd say that knowing the lowercase form is far more important, because most writing in books and other media will be in lowercase." He explained to her. Knowing how she knew the letters was solved, since she did get it from the books in the library… So that meant that she must have tried to teach herself at some point. Surely those books had both forms though?

"What is it though?" She asked again.

_How should I explain this? Though this does explain why her diary was written in completely uppercase letters. Whoever was helping her spell in there certainly didn't do a good job of teaching her how to do it right…_ He felt annoyed, but not towards Mary. Again he couldn't help but pity Mary, she just wanted to learn, play, and have friends, but everything in this world seem to be against the very notion… That was until he arrived, anyway.

"Garry?" She spoke up again. This time she didn't look very happy, and he could see her looking away from him, as if she were ashamed for her lack of knowledge.

Realizing that he got lost in thought again, he shook his head, "Ah, sorry."

"You were going to teach me about lowercase." She reminded him quietly. She was still looking away however, and Garry knew he'd have to make her realize that she could ask him anything and he wouldn't make fun of her.

"Mary, it's fine that you don't know. That's why I'm teaching you. For now, I think it would be easier if I just showed you lowercase." He got a piece of chalk and got on his knees beside Mary, giving her a small smile, trying to put her at ease, "Ok. See this capital A?"

"Um…" She again looked embarrassed, but she decided to speak up when she saw Garry giving her an encouraging look, "Capital? What's that?"

"Capital is the same thing as uppercase, they are interchangeable…" He looked to her, and realized that she didn't know what interchangeable meant, so he shook his head, "Ok, let me start over." He decided, "You drew an 'A' right here, right?"

"Yes, I did." She nodded. She still look slightly embarrassed, but he could clearly see her desire to learn.

"Yes, this A is the uppercase form. If you want to do the lowercase form, you do this." He drew a lowercase a, "They are both the same exact letter, but one is uppercase, and one is lowercase."

"So when do you use the lowercase form?" She asked with confusion still plainly visible on her face.

"The lowercase form is the one you'll almost always be using," He told her, "You ONLY use the uppercase form at the start of a sentence." He thought about it for a second, and then added, "Do you know what a sentence is?"

"Not really." She admitted, her face bright red. He just gently pat her shoulder, trying to get her to ease up, and it seemed to work to some extent, because she gay him a shy smile as she looked back up to him.

"We have a long time to do this," He shrugged, "Let's just start with the alphabet and work our way up, and then I can teach you about sentences."

"Ok!" She smiled as she got down and focused on drawing the uppercase and lowercase form of every letter of the alphabet, pressing her face very close to the ground as she drew. Garry would show her the lowercase form of each word, and it was clear that she was enjoying herself as she did the alphabet with him. Honestly, Garry was surprised by her willingness and eagerness to learn to write and read, he figured from her attitude that she would be all about playing and nothing else, but it appeared that the girl had more depth than he first realized. After completing the alphabet and making Mary rewrite it several more times, he told her to stop.

"All right, Mary." He spoke up to her as he stood beside her as she finished the lowercase and uppercase form of Z, "I think we ought to test you."

"How?" She asked, her eyes widening in wonder, and she dropped the chalk, turning to look at him while she was still on her knees. The dust from the chalk had coated her hands and knees now, and even Garry had some on him. They both ignored it however, not caring much for it.

"Not now," He replied quickly, "I mean in a few days, we're going to see how well you remember the alphabet. You need to know the lowercase letters by heart if you ever intend to read or write." He told her, "So we'll do this for another day or two, and then test you. If you pass the test then we'll move on."

She nodded excitedly, "Ok!"

"This might be slower than most classes go," He admitted, "Though it might be faster, but I'm not an English teacher, so I honestly don't know. I feel like it's a good start though." He really hoped he was doing this right, he knew that if taught wrong, a child's growth could be slowed tremendously.

"You're a good teacher! It's fun!" She insisted, which did at least make him feel a bit better. As long as Mary was having fun, he supposed it wasn't all bad.

"Well, I also want to start teaching you other things," He muttered after thinking for a little bit, "I know how much you want to read and write, but I think it might be a good idea to teach you how to do math as well, since that is a very important skill to have."

"I can count." She grumbled, crossing her arms. He didn't expect her to get annoyed at that, though he supposed that if she really could count, then it was a skill she was proud of, and didn't want to be questioned about.

"Oh? How high can you count to?" He asked, deciding to humor her for a bit, to see how much she really know.

"Um…" She lifted up her fingers, and he watched in amusement as she mouthed out the numbers she was counting to and she would lift up a finger to correspond to that number, "Ten…" She looked to her fingers, "Ten!"

"You can count up to ten?" He asked for clarification, kneeling down to her level so he could see her in the eyes.

"Yeah!" She nodded rapidly, her blonde hair swinging wildly as she did so.

"Ten is a good number to be able to count to, but it's essential that you learn other things than just counting. You should learn how to do basic arithmetic." He explained to her.

"Arithmetic…?" She repeated, looking hopelessly lost.

"Ah, sorry, I mean the four basics of math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division." He told her all of the essentials, frowning when he saw how clueless she was. She truly was way behind on everything, and it just made him feel quite sad.

"Uh…" She still looked lost. She was starting to get embarrassed again, he could tell, but she at least wasn't looking away yet.

"For instance, what's five plus five?"

She turned red, "S – Should I know this?" She now averted her eyes, and Garry saw her face burning in shame.

He realized that he was making her feel stupid, so he let out a sigh and gave her a pat on the head, "Mary, it's ok if you don't get it, that's why I'm here. I'm going to help you learn this stuff. I just used that as an example to explain to you why you should know this."

"Ok…" She mumbled, "So… What's five plus five then?"

He lifted up both of his hands still kneeling in front of her, making sure all of his fingers were sticking out prominently, "Here's five." He waved his left hand and wiggled all his fingers, "And here's another five." This time he waved his right hand, "Addition, which is the same thing as 'plus', is just adding two or more things together."

"So… It's just five added to five?" She questioned, pointing to both of his hands.

"Exactly." He nodded, "Do you know what it is now?"

She lifted up both her hands, "Ten…?" She still looked uncertain, and he could see that she was seconds away from averting her gaze yet again.

He grinned, and reached over to pat her head, "Yep! I knew you could figure this out. See? You can do it if you try."

"I want another one!" He saw a smile begin to appear on her face, and he couldn't help but smile too. She was beginning to get it, and he felt proud of her for even this little bit of progress.

"Alright, what's two plus four?" He asked, giving her a new problem. He smiled as he watched her immediately get to work on trying to solve it, knitting her brows in concentration.

She lifted up her left hand with two fingers lifted up, and then she made her right hand have four fingers lifted up. She counted the two on her left hand, and then the four on her left hand, "That would be… Six?"

"Very good!" He grinned, and he again gave her a pat on the head as a reward. She seemed to be very receptive to that, and she seemed to smile even wider when she got that one.

"Another!" She nearly shouted in her excitement.

"All right, how about six plus three?" He decided to ask that one, because that meant she couldn't use one hand to represent the six, and the resulting number wouldn't go outside of the list of numbers she knew.

"Um…" She lifted up five fingers on her left hand and frowned, hesitantly raising the pinky on her right hand to represent six, and then she lifted another three, "That would be… Nine!"

"Excellent." He nodded approvingly, and he reached over to pat her on the head yet again, "You're catching on very quickly."

She gave him a beaming smile, and she couldn't help but giggle. He could tell that she was proud of herself, and he didn't want to detract that from her at all. She then spoke up, saying, "Thank you!"

"You're welcome." He decided to change tracks then, to see how far Mary could go in this regard, "Alright, so you understand the concept of addition, how about subtraction?"

"What's that?" She asked. This time she didn't look ashamed as she asked the question, but determined.

"It's the opposite of addition." He explained, "Instead of adding two things together, you'll be subtracting something from another – removing, if you will. So if I ask you, what is seven minus three, I would be asking what the new number would be if you remove three from seven. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Um…" He lost her again.

"Ok, for example." He lifted his back hands up, "I've got seven fingers up, right?"

"Yeah," She nodded, still looking confused, but she mimicked how many fingers he had up with her own so she could follow along.

"Ok, so if I want to get rid of three fingers…" He slowly lowered three fingers, "How many do I have left?"

Mary mimicked the same thing with her own hands, and then counted the remaining fingers, "That would be four?" She asked, looking up at him for confirmation.

"Exactly! So seven minus three is…" He left it hanging, so she could answer it for herself. He wasn't disappointed, because she immediately shouted it out within seconds.

"Four." She repeated again with a lot more confidence, "Ok, I think I get it!"

"Ok, let's try it then. What's three minus two?" He asked, not lifting his own hands to show Mary this time.

Seeing that Garry wasn't going to do it this time, she lifted up her hands, her left with three, and her right with two, "Um… Five?" She looked up to him for confirmation.

"No, don't add, you need to remove it." He reached forward and gently took hold of her hand with three fingers up, "Three…" He reached over to her right hand, "Minus two. That means you need to remove two from three."

"Oh…" She nodded, and she looked back and forth between her two hands, and used her right hand as a reference for how many fingers to remove, "So… One?" She lowered two fingers down on her left hand, only leaving on remaining.

"Correct!" He cheered, "You're getting the hang of this pretty quickly." He gave her the reward that she seemed to enjoy, patting her head, and she again smiled.

"Another!"

After a few more basic ones, he decided to truly test her newly acquired subtraction skill with something else.

"All right…" He mumbled, "How about ten minus seven?" That way she wouldn't be able to use her right hand to reference for her left hand, and there were more numbers than fingers she had. She blinked in surprise when she lifted all ten fingers up, realizing what Garry had done to her.

"I don't know." She mumbled, her lips forming a small frown as she realized what he did to her.

"You have ten fingers up right now, right?" He asked, pointing out to both of her hands. She nodded, but didn't say anything else. "Ok, so we both know that this is ten, so we need to remove seven. So…" He lowered one finger down, "One, two, three…" He did that seven times, until only three fingers remained, "So what number do we have now?"

"Three?" She more questioned than answered, and she looked up to him for confirmation, as if she wasn't even sure if that was the right answer.

"You don't sound convinced." He noted, smiling slightly as he watched her.

She blushed a bit, "It's really hard."

"Don't worry; you'll get the hang of it." He assured her, "But yes, the answer is three."

She let out a sigh, "I don't like math at all." Mary looked to him and shrugged, "I'd rather try to learn to read and write."

He frowned, "I'm sorry, but it really is an essential thing you should be learning. You need to use math every day. It's the same thing with reading and writing. I think you need to know all of this to grow as a person."

"I know," She grumbled, still not looking particularly happy about it. She then shyly smiled, and looked away from him, but not out of embarrassment, "I'll do it though, because you're nice to me."

"Oh?" Garry let out, raising an eyebrow as he watched her. He noticed her blush increasing a bit as she noticed he was looking at her, but it went away as she turned back towards him.

"That's why I don't have anyone else in here teaching me, they laugh when they realize I don't know this stuff…" She frowned, and her hands formed into fists, and he noticed that she was tightening them so hard that they began to shake.

"Even Red laughs?" He asked. If that was truly the case, then his opinion of the painting would go much lower. She should know better, since she helped them out so much.

"Not her, but she doesn't want to teach me anyway." She stopped shaking her fists, and looked up to him, noticing that he looked angry, though she knew not at her. She couldn't help but smile then, "Thank you. You're a really good teacher!"

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his head and feeling a bit self-conscious, "Thanks, I guess."

"What are we going to do now?" She asked, looking out at the chalk they still had laying around. Garry heaved himself back up to his feet, and wobbled a bit, since his knees were a bit sore. She got up after, though without any of the complications.

"Well, I'm getting kind of hungry," He admitted, "So I think we'll call the lessons for today. From now on, we'll do it after breakfast until lunch. Is that ok with you?"

"Aw…" She moaned, "I wanna keep doing it! I won't get good if we stop now!"

He couldn't help but chuckled at her outburst, "Mary, you'd be one of a kind in a public school."

"What's a public school?" She asked curiously.

"I'll tell you if you help me put the chalk away." He pointed to the chalk, and walked over to it to begin picking it up.

She crossed her arms, and looked down to the floor, as if she was contemplating her options, and then she looked up at him, her eyes shining once more, "Ok, we can do this more tomorrow then! Now tell me! I want to know!" Garry watched as the girl darted around, grabbing the chalk that they had used for the lessons that day, and he helped carry them to her room. As they walked down the road that she had drawn, he decided to try and explain it to her.

"A public school is where a bunch of kids get together to learn, basically. Why I said you'd be one of a kind is because a lot of the kids don't like learning, and they would rather be somewhere else playing." He explained as he looked down to her.

"But learning is good for you!" She exclaimed, and then she asked, "How many kids are there?"

"A lot," He muttered, "It depends on where it's located, but some schools have thousands of children there."

"Did you go to school?" She asked, stopping in her tracks.

"Yeah," He nodded, "Everyone in the…" He paused, and shook his head, "Yeah, I did."

"Did you have a lot of friends…?" Her voice sounded further away, and Garry looked down and realized that she had stopped walking. He turned around to face her, frowning slightly.

He gave her a worried glance, and saw that she was looking forward with an unreadable look on her face, but he answered her anyway, "I had some people I hung out with, but I wouldn't really call them friends anymore, especially since I haven't seen them in years… Are you ok, Mary?"

"I'm fine." She looked wistfully up to her house as she began to walk forward and approach it, "You should try to contact your friends again… they probably miss you."

"Yeah, maybe…" Garry muttered. Mary led Garry up to her room, and the two put the chalk away, and then walked back outside of the house to go down the hall that they were becoming quite familiar with over time. Mary was pretty silent after the description of a public school, and Garry was berating himself in his mind for bringing it up. Of course Mary would get like that after learning about a place where a bunch of kids got together; she was probably feeling bad because of that! How could he have been so stupid?

"Hey, Garry?" He heard her speaking up as they walked to the painting that provided food, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course you can. What is it?" He asked, smiling at her to encourage her to ask her question without any hesitation.

"What did you do in… the other world?" She muttered quietly.

"Well, I'm an art teacher, actually." He explained, and he smiled when he down state suddenly disappeared as she gawked up at him with wide eyes.

"So you ARE a teacher!" She exclaimed, "That's why you were so good!"

"Not an English or Math teacher," He pointed out to her, "I teach college students how to draw, or rather, I used to, before I got laid off." He let out a dejected sigh.

"Laid off? Is that like…?" She tried to think of the other word, "Getting fired?" She spoke once she remembered what it was.

"No, being laid off is different than being fired. If you're laid off, it means that they either can't afford to keep you anymore, or they determined that they don't need the position you have anymore." He explained, "It wasn't because I was bad at my job."

"So you're really good at it then?" She asked in awe. Her eyes shining as she looked at him.

"At drawing?" He asked for clarification.

"Yeah!" She nodded her head quickly. Smiling as she looked at him.

"I wouldn't say I'm amazing at it, but I guess it's passable." He explained to her, glad to see that she was starting to regain the cheer she had earlier that day.

"Then you can teach me, right?"

"You want to learn how to draw too?" He asked in surprise, "Are you sure?"

"I'm really sure!" She exclaimed, smiling widely as she turned to him, her fists balled up in front of her chest, and he swore he could see fire burning in her eyes, "I want to learn how to do everything you can teach me! I want to learn!"

He blinked in surprise at her declaration, but in retrospect, he really shouldn't have been surprised at all. Mary put her all into everything he had taught her today, and she genuinely seemed willing to listen to him and learn. He smiled, and gave the girl a pat on the head, "Ok, I'll start teaching you how to draw. I guess I can teach you tomorrow after lunch, if that's ok with you?"

She let out a sigh, letting her arms drop to her side and she looked at him dejectedly, "Why tomorrow?"

"Because I need to figure out a lesson plan, since I'll be teaching you a lot of different things now." He told her, "This won't be easy for me."

"Lesson plan?" She repeated aloud, expecting him to explain it to her, which he obliged.

"Basically a guideline to how I'll be teaching you." He answered her unasked question, and she nodded in understanding.

"Oh, I see!" She exclaimed, "So you need time to teach me right!"

"Exactly!" He nodded, "So for today, I'll take you to the library and read to you after we're eating, is that ok with you?"

"That sounds good!" She nodded. He chuckled as the two reached the painting. One thing was for sure, he wasn't going to be bored in there for much longer, especially since Mary was so dedicated to learning. He was honestly glad that she was such a willing student, and he genuinely looked forward to teaching her. He gave the girl a smile as he reached into the portrait and pulled out food for the both of them, and she returned it with her own smile.


	5. New Sights

New Sights

The few weeks after he had decided to start teaching Mary were definitely some of the most difficult days Garry experienced in quite a while, and he knew it was probably even worse for Mary. The two would wake up in Mary's bed, and after breakfast every day, they would begin with learning to read and write. Garry had decided that while chalk was fun, he wanted her to start writing properly, so he was fortunately able to find some pencils and paper around in Mary's room, and brought her into the library where they would spend most of their lesson time in from now on.

Garry was sitting down on one of the chairs, overlooking Mary's progress as she worked, while the girl in question was down on her knees in front of the table, her face pressed very close to the paper as she pressed very hard down on her pencil, writing on the page provided. "I can do this…." Mary mumbled as she wrote down several words in her still very sloppy handwriting on the piece of paper that Garry had given her. Her brows furrowed as she continued to write, and she bit her bottom lip as well.

Garry looked at the paper, "Mary, remember, lowercase. It's very important." He crossed his arms as he leaned in closer to examine the work she'd done so far.

She grumbled, "But it's hard to remember. So I just use uppercase at the beginning then?" She looked over to him, only to see that he was nodding.

"At the start of every new sentence, that's right." He informed her, "Also, try writing neater, we didn't go over all those lessons of you writing down each letter individually just to have you write so sloppily, and don't press down on the pencil so hard, you're going to break it at that rate, just hold it lightly to the paper."

Mary nodded, and she leaned back and let out a sigh as she closed her eyes for a little bit. Shortly after that, she took the pencil out of her left hand and put it in her right, and began to write down the sentences that Garry had written down on another sheet of paper that she was supposed to copy, though this time she tried her best to keep everything Garry told her just now in mind as she copied them.

The fact that Mary ended up being ambidextrous had caught Garry off guard, but he admitted that it was a very good skill to have. He could still recall a few days ago, when he noticed that she could write with both hands, and he had told her to keep switching hands to try and make it so she could use both of them very well. So after she wrote all her letters, or sentences, she would switch hands to improve her skill.

"You're improving," He noted, "Keep up the good work." He caught her shy smile, and she continued to work hard. That was another thing he had learned about Mary – if he told her what she should do, and then gave her plenty of positive reinforcement, she would work harder to try and please him more. Perhaps it was a bit underhand of him, but why not do it if it worked so well? That wasn't even mentioning that he did honestly thing she was doing very well, since she was catching on to things very quickly for someone who had barely any schooling.

A few minutes passed, and she handed him the paper, "Done!" She smiled at him, and her eyes were shining with barely suppressed cheer, but he could sense a little tension as well, as if she were expecting him to not like it.

He took hold of it, and scanned his eyes across the page a few times, reading the basic sentences that he had made her write. He smiled, and nodded his head approvingly, "You've really improved, I'm proud of you." She let out a happy giggle at the praise, and her cheeks flushed a little read. "Now, can you read what I made you write?"

"I can!" She nodded enthusiastically, "Sh- She… Ran… F- F…" She frowned as she tried to read the last word, but she just kept repeating the F sound. Garry watched for a short bit before he decided to help her out.

"Remember, if you can't figure out the word, sound it out." He encouraged her, and he noticed that her eyes widened – she hadn't thought of that apparently. She gave him an appreciative nod, and then looked back down.

"Fah-st. Fast. She ran fast!" She looked up at Garry with her eyes gleaming.

"That's right," He smiled at how happy she appeared to be, "Can you read the rest of them?" He made her go through all of the other simple sentences that she wrote, and like the first one, she was able to do them, even if she had to sound out a few simple words. If Garry had to mark her progress, he'd say that she was just about at a first grade reading level, perhaps a bit more, but it was quite an extraordinary difference from a few weeks earlier.

"Great job!" He clapped his hands, "You've gotten exceptionally good at writing and reading already. I'm amazed that only a month ago you didn't even know how to do this!" He gave her a wide smile, since he felt so proud of her.

"It's thanks to you!" She answered with a large smile, "Thank you so much!" She was so proud of herself and thankful for Garry's help that she jumped off of her knees and wrapped her arms around him as tightly as her little body could, happiness practically radiating off of her body. Garry quickly wrapped his own arms around her, knowing that Mary responded particularly well whenever he did that.

"Oh, it appears you two are busy."

Garry rolled his eyes, and looked over his shoulder at Red. The woman apparently entered the library without making a sound, but fortunately he was becoming quite accustom to that, and it didn't frighten him as much. Like usual, Red was wearing her red dress, and she had a slight smile crossing her face as she looked at the two of them. "Actually, Mary just finished her Reading and Writing test – she passed with flying colors." Garry explained to her.

"Flying colors?" Mary repeated, looking up to Garry questioningly, still holding him tightly.

"I'm sorry; it means that you did very well." He answered her implied question, and he felt her hugging him even tighter than before, since she was so happy to receive his praise. He never realized how many phrases and idioms he said in his every day speech, and he dearly hoped Mary would catch on soon.

"That's good to hear." Red remarked sincerely, "It's good to see Mary having so much fun." After Mary finally let go of Garry, he turned around and watched Red as she casually walked over to them, her brown hair swaying from side to side, and her hips were… He shook his head, and focused his eyes back up at her red eyes, and saw the amused smile adorning her face. "Like what you see?" She couldn't help but asked.

Garry blushed red at being caught staring, and averted his gaze quickly, "I don't know what you mean…" He internally winced at how dumb he sounded, and he dearly hoped that Red wouldn't catch on.

Mary heard most of the conversation, and she puffed her cheeks, wrapping her arms around Garry again and glaring at her so-called big sis, "What do you want?" She asking, not bothering to disguise how annoyed she was.

Red laughed, "Is little Mary jealous?" She leaned down so that she was eye-level with Mary, and her red eyes looked into Mary's blue – there was no malice in Red's question, just pure amusement, which Mary noted immediately.

Mary blushed at that statement, "Sh- shut up!" She buried her face in Garry's coat to try and hide her blush from Red as the woman started to giggle.

"Eh, what's this about?" Garry asked, looking down at Mary hiding herself from Red. He gently reached down and pat her head, to try and coax her out, which did work to some extent – Mary did stop hiding her face, but she was still gripping Garry tightly.

Red shook her head at Garry's question, "It's nothing." She turned her eyes back to Mary, "I'm sorry for upsetting you; I just got bored talking to my sisters and decided to see what you two were up to. It has been a few days since I last saw you."

Mary let go of Garry, but still eyed Red warily, "Garry has been teaching me." She explained as concisely as she could.

"Mary has improved quite a bit too; I think you'd be surprised." Garry pointed out the pile of papers on the table, "See for yourself."

"Don't mind if I do," Red replied, walking to where the tables were. She took a seat in one of the chairs, and reached forward to take a piece of paper, and she looked through it, "Wow, you have really gotten better." She gave Mary a smile, "I'm really happy for you."

Her annoyed feelings were replaced with pride, and she huffed out her chest, "Thank you big sis!" Mary exclaimed, smiling lightly now that her big sister wasn't flirting with Garry.

Red looked through a few more of the papers, and then looked up, "So what's next?" She gently set the pages down into a small neatly stacked pile, and looked towards Garry.

"I actually have a math test for Mary." Garry answered, reaching towards a small folder he had on the table and he pulled out a sheet of paper with all sorts of problems and equations on it. It was all basic arithmetic of course, but that didn't stop Mary's face from falling when she noticed it.

"I don't like math…" Mary groaned, going over to sit on one of the chairs, and she dejectedly looked at the paper as Garry set it down in front of her.

"You say that, but you've improved a lot since you started," He told her, and it was very true. It didn't take Mary long to get the concept of addition and subtraction down, and it took even shorter for her to be able to count beyond ten. It appeared that all she really needed was a little push in the right direction, and then she would act on her own, doing what was necessary.

Mary smiled at the praise, "Thank you." She reached forward for a pencil, and looked down at the test again, squinting her eyes as she did so.

"I only tell the truth," He honestly replied, "Anyway, Red, I'm about to make Mary take this test, and I don't want to come across as sounding rude, but you'll have to be quiet while she takes it so she can concentrate on her assignment." He looked over to the woman, who gave a non-committal shrug.

"That's fine," Red answered, "We're in a library, I might as well find something to read in the meantime." She turned to look over at the many bookshelves, and stood there for the time being, letting out a soft hum as her eyes scanned them shelves, as if she were thinking of what to read.

"Good," Garry looked at Red a few seconds more, and then he finally turned back to Mary and addressed her, "Are you ready Mary?"

She nodded, her head bobbing up and down, "Yeah, let's get this over with!"

"After this we can eat, ok?" Garry mentioned, knowing that giving her a reward for finishing would motivate her to do even better, "Alright then… Begin!"

She smiled, "Ok!" He watched as she knelt back down on the floor in front of the small table there, and like before, she nearly pressed her face into the paper as she was writing down the answers to the questions on the paper. He frowned, and rubbed his chin as he watched her. Honestly, he had been getting suspicious of how close she had been getting to the paper for a long time now, and he noticed how close she had to get in order to read text on pages, but she seem to be able to see him just fine from a distance.

"Hey, Red…" He spoke up quietly, but it was still loud enough that Mary perked up a little bit as she heard him calling out to the woman, "Can I talk to you for a bit?" He looked over to Red, to see that the woman glanced back to him, having her train of thought broken by him directly addressing her.

"Oh?" Red looked to him with a smile, "Sure, I was just about to go find a book to read. We can chat while I look."

"That's fine," He turned back to look at Mary, "Keep up the good work, I'll be right back."

Mary was frowning for some odd reason that he couldn't determine, and she eyed Red for a few seconds, but she finally let out a huff, "Ok, don't be gone long." With that she turned back to her paper, and continued to jot down answers.

"I won't be." He replied, and he turned around to follow Red in the narrow columns between the bookshelves. The room was so massive, and there were so many books that he felt like he would become very dizzy if he stopped moving for even a second. He followed Red through the columns for a bit longer, and into the fiction section of the library, where she finally pulled out a book and started to leaf through it.

"So what do you want to talk about?" She asked. Though her eyes were scanning the book, it was clear that she wasn't really comprehending the text on the page, and was just using it to give her hands something to do as they talked.

"I was wonder if there's some painting around here where I can reach in and pull out some glasses. I don't know for sure, but I think Mary might be far-sighted." He explained to her his suspicious he had for quite a while now, and he noticed Red perk up at that.

"Oh? Far sighted?" She stopped pretending to read the book, and instead look at him.

"You know, she can see things at a distance just fine, but close up things are blurry to her." He explained, misinterpreting her surprise.

"I know what it is," She replied, looking a bit annoyed. She shook her head, "I meant to say: what makes you come to that conclusion."

"Oh, Sorry…" He meekly looked down, chuckling from embarrassment.

She sighed and shook her head, "I might be able to find something for her, but doesn't she need a specific prescription or something if she gets glasses? They won't work if I just pull out any random pair, would they?"

"You're right," He answered looking back up, his embarrassment from earlier was gone, "That's why I was thinking we could just have her there and pull out random pairs until we find one that works for her."

"We could be there for a while." Red noted dryly. That was putting it mildly. If they honestly wanted to find a pair that was JUST right for Mary, they would be there for a very long time.

"I know, but she really needs them, and I think it would really help her when it comes to reading – leaning forward like that has to be very annoying, and it has got to be killing her neck."

"You know she can't feel it, right?" Red asked, an amused smile crossing her lips as she noticed Garry blinking a few times in surprise.

"Well…" Garry shook his head, and chuckled sheepishly, "I – I kind of forgot about that." He openly admitted, "She acts just like a normal girl, so I just kind of forgot after a while."

"Do you still want to do it then?" Red asked, putting the book back onto the shelf, and reaching for a different one. She turned the book around to look at the synopsis, her eyes scanning it as she continued to listen to Garry.

"Yes, I still want to help her." He told Red, "If nothing else, it will be nice for her to be able to read things from a distance, and not smear ink on her face when she's drawing."

Red put the second book back into the shelf, and turned towards Garry, "You really care for her, don't you." It wasn't a question, but just a statement of fact. She saw Garry flush a little bit from the personal question, but to his credit, he didn't avert his eyes.

"I do." He nodded, "She's a good girl, and it saddens me to think that I'm the first person to stay here and try to be her friend. She deserves better than that."

Red nodded in agreement, "Yes. It is sad, isn't it?"

"So will you help me?" Garry asked her again, and he watched as she seemed to again go into deep thought, crossing her arms and looking up towards the ceiling.

Red finally let out a deep sigh, "I suppose I will. I don't have anything else to do after all."

"Thank you!" Garry smiled, feeling relief that Red would assist him. Whenever he or Mary needed help, Red would always be there to guide them, and now was no exception.

Red responded with her own smile, "Now come on, I bet she's feeling jealous that I've kept you here for so long." She walked pass him, and beckoned him to come. He followed, but had a confounded expression on his face.

"Why would she be jealous?" He asked, trailing behind Red, since it was impossible to walk side by side down the hallway without knocking books down.

Red let out a loud laugh, "Keep being clueless Garry, it suits you just fine." He shook his head, unsure of what Red was talking about, and just followed her out of the column of bookshelves to see that Mary was still sitting there, with her face nearly pressed into the paper she was writing. He took his seat where he was previously, and Red sat across from him, and both of them watched Mary as she finished off the last few questions.

"Done!" Mary dropped the pencil that was in her left hand, and lifted her head from the paper, and she leaned back until she was pressed into the chair that was directly behind her.

"Let's see how well you did." Garry muttered, taking the paper, and reading through it, his eyes darting from side to side, "Ok… You completed all of the addition problems just fine." He smiled when he noticed Mary pumping her fist in triumph, "But you missed three of the subtraction problems." He put the paper back down on the table and took a red pen and marked the three she got wrong, "Out the thirty questions assigned though, you only missed three, so you got a ninety percent, great work!"

Fortunately Garry had explained the grading system to her, and told her that the higher the percentage was to one hundred, the better she did, so she smiled when she heard her final grade, "So I passed – with flying colors!"

"You did," He nodded, laughing as she repeated the phrase he said earlier, "But I want to go over these three you missed." He got beside Mary and put the paper back down on the table so she could see, "Now this one…" He went over it, and Mary nodded.

"Oh, that was a six?" She muttered, "I thought it was an eight."

"That would explain it," Garry nodded, "I was wondering how you got the result from this question… So these other two, what did you read them as?"

"Fifty minus twenty-eight, and forty four minus thirteen." She listed off for him, pointing them out, and he noticed that she would squint when she read the questions off, again giving him even more proof for what he was sure the issue was.

"I see, it appears that you're getting eight, three, and six messed up with each other." Garry mumbled, "I wonder if that's due to my poor handwriting." He was fairly sure that wasn't the case, but he had to be sure.

"Let me see," Red replied, taking hold of the paper and read it, "No. I can read these just fine." He was fortunate Red was there to say that, since it confirmed his suspicion.

"Then do you think…?" He looked to Red, leaving the question hanging.

She nodded, "Yeah, you were right. We ought to do something about it." Red replied, and she noticed that Mary was looking between the two adults in confusion.

"About what?" Mary asked, "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," Garry shook his head, "Far from it. I think if you could see the questions clearly, you would have gotten a hundred percent on that no problem."

Mary frowned, "You write so small! I'm sorry I can't read it!" She pointed to the paper to illustrate her point, looking back and forth from the paper and Garry's face.

Garry realized that he had made Mary go on the defensive by insinuating that it was her fault for missing them, so he quickly rephrased his statement, "I'm sorry Mary, I meant to say that you are very smart, and you should have gotten these right, and would have, but you're far sighted, and you couldn't read my small text. I should have taken that into account and make the text bigger."

"Far sighted?" Mary repeated, clearly lost. She wasn't defensive anymore, but more curious than anything, like she always was when the opportunity to learn something new arose.

"It means you can't see things up close," Red supplied helpfully.

"I can see things up close!" Mary insisted, crossing her arms, and narrowing her eyes at Red. She wasn't very fond of people telling her that she wasn't able to do things, no matter what they were.

"Can you read this then?" Red reached for the paper Garry and Mary were using, and held it about two feet away from Mary's face. Mary's glare disappeared as she squinted her eyes to try to read the text.

Mary shook her head, "It's too small to read! I said that already…" She then looked hesitantly at Red, "Am I supposed to be able to read that?"

"The text is small, but you should be able to read it from this distance," Red explained, "I think you need to wear glasses."

"Glasses?" She looked to Garry fearfully, "Is that a bad thing?"

"No, it's not bad at all." Garry answered, "It just means that in order to see you'll need to wear glasses – they're these lenses that sit in front of your eyes and allow you to see." He made the shape of glasses with his hands to try and demonstrate for her.

"Lenses?" Mary muttered, "How do they stay there?"

"There are handles that use your ears as a support, and… Wait, you know what? Here, let me draw it for you." He took her pencil and a clear sheet of paper, and drew a pair of glasses for Mary to look at "Those are glasses."

Mary squinted as she looked down at them, "They look weird."

"Allow me…" Red spoke up again, and reached toward the paper with the glasses drawn on it, and Garry watched in amazement as she seem to just pull the glasses right off of the page, and she handed them to Mary. She noticed the surprised look on Garry's face and smiled, "You seem to forget that we're capable of doing that."

"I haven't seen it done in a few weeks," He defended himself; "I forgot you could do something like that." Though he really should have thought of it sooner – Mary could make a bed, a sun, light, anything from the chalk, so it made sense that it could be done with a pencil as well.

Mary meanwhile took hold of the glasses, and put them on her face, since Garry told her they were supposed to go there. She looked up at Garry, "How do I look?"

Garry looked down, and his mouth fell open – Mary was still wearing her green dress, and had her long blonde hair, but there was something about her wearing black-rimmed glasses, looking at him with her bright blue eyes that made him want to wrap her up in a hug and never let go. He held in his initial impulse, and reached forward to give her head an awkward pat instead, "You look very adorable." He sincerely told her.

Mary blushed at the praise, and looked over to Red. "You look cute." Red admitted, giving the girl a wide grin, "Now tell me, can you read this now?"

Mary blinked a few times in surprise, and nodded, "Yeah. I can read it now… Is this how you two have always been able to see?" She spoke with a little awe in her voice, and she looked down at all the papers, letting out a few 'ohs' and 'ahs' as she read papers from a distance she didn't think was possible.

"Yes, that's how we both see." Garry answered, "I'm so sorry, I should have suspected that you needed glasses the moment you started writing." He was an idiot to not notice sooner, as far as he was concerned – it was so obvious in retrospect!

"It's ok, as long as I've got it now, it's fine." She blinked a few times, "It's a little disorienting though…" She mumbled, blinking a few more times.

"That's natural; it'll go away after a little while." Garry assured her, and then he looked to Red, "How did you know that they would work for her?"

"Because you drew them with her in your mind," Red explained, "That's why the prescription is just right for her."

"I see." Garry muttered, "I didn't know it worked like that."

Red smiled, showing off her white teeth, "Well, now you do."

"Can we go eat lunch now?" Mary asked, pulling on Garry's coat as she asked, "I want to start drawing soon!" The sooner they ate lunch, the sooner Mary's next lesson would come, so it was no surprise that Mary wanted to go so quickly.

"Sure," Garry nodded, "Just let me organize all these papers first." He leaned forward and separated the papers that were scattered all over the table into two neat piles, and then put in the folder. He tucked the folder under his arm, and he shoved the pencils into his pocket, "All right, I'm ready to go." Mary smiled; looking up at him with her new glasses, and took hold of his hand. "Do you want to come with us, Red?" Garry asked, looking back towards her as they headed to the door.

"I might as well," Red answered, "You two seem to be much more interesting than anyone else in here." She grimaced as she thought of something particularly uncomfortable, "You're much better than my sister, that's for sure…"

"Let's go!" Mary cheered when Red stood beside them. The walk to the portrait wasn't too eventful. The only changed routine of things was Mary going around to the various paintings and reading the plaques under them from a new distance, since she now had glasses. Garry would laugh at how excited she was, and there were even a few times she dragged him over to some and had him help her sound out the words and say them correctly. Red simply stood back, and watched their dynamics, feeling very happy that Mary had found a real friend.

Once they reached the portrait that provided them food, Garry pulled out a meal for himself and Mary, and the two started eating. Red sat beside Garry as he ate, and just watched him eating the food, since she never really seen someone eat before. She looked over to Mary a few times as well, and though she wanted to say something, she decided to keep her mouth shut, and just Red stayed quiet as the two silently ate.

Mary meanwhile was having a difficult time adjusting to her glasses. She would reach up and adjust them every few seconds, and she would frown and twitch her nose occasionally as well throughout the whole meal. Finally after doing it for the seventh time, Red couldn't help but ask, "You don't like them?" She smiled in amusement as she watched Mary wiggle her glasses around some more.

"They are weird… When I look down I expect them to fall, so I twitch my nose to keep them there, but they don't fall." She looked to Garry, "Is that bad?"

"You'll get used to them; it's always difficult to adjust to change at first." Garry explained, and then he stood up with an empty plate, and he took hold of Mary's when she handed her own to him. When he put them away, Red watched as Mary jumped up and looked to be very excited.

"Let's go draw now!" She excitedly looked to Garry, though the effect was diminished somewhat as she reached up and adjusted her glasses yet again.

"All right, let's go." He turned to look at Red, "Are you coming with us?"

Red shrugged, "I'll give the same answer as I did earlier: I might as well."

Garry smiled, "Ok, follow us then." Garry, Mary, and Red walked down the hall, Mary way in the lead, giggling as she looked back to see Garry and Red still following her. Instead of going to the black room, or back to the library, they went further down the dark hall to another door. Once inside, Red noticed that the entire room was similar to a large storage area, a place where one would store paintings that weren't on display, and other unneeded supplies. All along the walls were many boxes of supplies, and in the middle of the room stood a few paint stands, and chairs that were stacked atop one another. There were some shelves that had papers scattered across them as well.

"Why are we in here?" Red asked, looking around the room, a little perplexed. It was just a room with a bunch of junk, and nothing more, as far as she was concerned.

"It's perfect for observational drawing," Garry explained, "There's also a lot of things in here we can draw with, but for now, it's easiest if we just start with the basics. Now that Mary can see, this might go by a lot quicker." He noted, walking over to a discarded box. When he reached the box, he pulled out a few random objects – a ball, a palette, a paint brush, and an empty paint bucket. He then arranged the items in a small heap atop a box, and Mary to grab a chair, and she sat down in front of the display.

"So she's going to draw the junk then?" Red asked, walking over and eyeing the pile with mild interest.

Garry nodded, "Pretty much." He pulled out a sketch book from a nearby shelf, "For now I want her to learn depth and perspective. I wish we had some cubes or something to work with, since those are a lot easier shapes to draw, but this is all I have for now." He shrugged, "Mary," He turned to the girl, "I want you to draw this to the best of your ability, all right? Oh, right, can you see it better now?"

"I can see it much better!" She confirmed, smiling widely, "And I'll draw it as well as I can!"

"That's all I ask," Garry gave the girl a pat on the shoulder, and he handed her a pencil and an eraser and she started to work on drawing the display he had made. After doing that, he simply sat beside Mary as she drew, and he would very occasionally help her out, but for the most part, he simply watched her. Red sat back and watched them draw for a little while, and after about an hour, she realized that they were just starting to wrap up drawing she had been assigned. Red would have been bored, but the entire time she was fascinated with how much Mary trusted Garry, and how much they seem to care for one another. She also noticed some changes in Mary as well, though they were quite subtle – she didn't seem to get as upset whenever she made a mistake, and she actually listened to everything Garry was saying. She couldn't recall a time when the girl had paid someone so much attention before. Was it all because he was willing to be her friend and stay with her?

"All right," Garry spoke up after another twenty minutes, "Well, let's see here. You've really improved." He praised her, giving her a smile as he looked over her sketch.

Mary giggled at the compliment, and turned a bit red, "Thank you, but I made a few mistakes…" She pointed them out to him, "So it's not very good…"

Garry shrugged, "Everyone makes mistakes, even I do! You did this excellently though!" He then began to point out the best points about her painting. Red watched in interest as Garry seem to ignore most of the mistakes that Mary had made and even pointed out, and focused only on the positives, and then he set up another model for Mary to draw. When he finished setting it up, he told her to begin again, and like before Garry sat beside her and only occasionally talked to her.

"Garry?" Red spoke up after standing there for another ten minutes, "Can I talk to you for a bit?"

"Hm?" He looked over his shoulder and saw Red, "Huh? Oh! I forgot you were here!" He smiled apologetically, "I'm sorry!"

"That's fine," Red waved off, "Can we go out into the hall for a little bit?" She nodded her head towards the door, and Garry nodded.

"Sure." He turned to look at Mary again, "Just keep up the good work Mary, I'll be right back." He gave the girl a gentle pat on the head as he stood up, and followed Red out of the room. Mary gave Red an annoyed glance, and Red couldn't help but chuckle at the look, causing Mary to blush slightly and go back to drawing as if nothing even happened.

"So…" Red muttered as the two of them left the storage room, and Garry kept the door open just a crack – just in case. "How have you been in here?" Red asked.

"It's… Interesting." Garry muttered, "I can't say it's the greatest place ever, but it has good food, and once you get to know the people in here, it's… nice, I suppose." He gave a shrug, "Mary's also good company."

"It's nice in here?" Red laughed, "I still remember when you were running away from me screaming like a little girl!"

"Yeah, well, to be fair, you were yelling at me and crawling halfway out of that picture you drawn from." He pointed out, "Anyway, is there a reason you asked me to come out here?"

"I wanted to ask, why didn't you point out her flaws when you were going over her drawing?" She crossed her arms, and looked genuinely curious as she watched him.

"You heard what she said, right? She already knew what she did wrong, and she pointed them out to me, so there was no reason to go over them with her." He explained, "Furthermore, even if she didn't point them out, telling a child what their mistakes are is not an effective way to help them learn, it only discourages them. It's best if you help them by pointing out the good and what you like about it."

"So what if they keep making the same mistakes?" Red asked, raising a single eyebrow. Garry marveled at the fact that she could actually lift up a single eyebrow like that, but he shook his head, and focused back to what they were talking about.

"Generally they'll catch on what they need to change, but if they DO keep making the same mistake for a while, I guess I'd point it out to them, but I wouldn't be overly harsh about it or anything. I'd try to figure out why they kept doing it, you know, stuff like that."

"You sound like you have experience with this." Red muttered.

"I do – didn't I tell you?" He wondered, and then shook his head, "Huh, I must have only mentioned it to Mary. Anyway, I used to be an art teacher."

"That explains it," Red remarked, "So you're so good at it because you have experience with this kind of thing."

"Exactly." Garry nodded.

"I want to know though… Why haven't you tried to escape? You know you could leave right now, or any time you want. Since you're in here and still alive, you can always leave." Red explained to him. She had to admit, she was most curious about this, why would ANY human willingly stay in this world?

Garry frowned, "I know I could, but… I don't want to leave her in here alone. She's a good kid, and she deserves more than what she has. If anything, I'd let her take my place in the real world, since she'd probably do more good than I could."

Red's eyes widened in surprise, "Are you serious? You'd let her take your place?" She was so surprised that her arms fell from their crossed position under her chest down to her sides. It wasn't everyday she met a human quite like Garry, after all.

He nodded, "Yeah, I think so. Like I said, Mary deserves it after all she'd been through. If she wanted to leave, I wouldn't stop her."

Red was silent, but finally she just chuckled, "You're really something else, Garry, you know that?"

"Is that bad?" He meekly asked, chucking a bit as Red did so. It was awkward though, and he stopped and looked aside.

"No, not really." Red muttered dismissively, "But I see why Mary adores you so much now."

"Adore?" Garry repeated, looking back to Red and flushing a bit, "I think that's putting it a bit far."

"No, it's not. You're her first real friend, and it's clear that she both loves and looks up to you because of it. I'm amazed she is even letting you out here with me, since the old Mary wouldn't want you out of her sight, since she might think you're trying to escape. You're a good influence, and I respect you for that."

Garry blinked a few times, "I – I see. I'm just trying to help her."

"And I want you to keep doing that," Red sincerely replied, "If you ever need anything, just ask me, ok?"

"Uh, ok." He replied feeling surprised, "I'll come to you if I need any more help."

With that, Red turned around and started to walk down the hall, "Have fun teaching Mary." Garry waved at the leaving figure, and shook his head. Was it really that surprising that he was willing to stay and help Mary? Did other people tarnish their trust so badly that Red only now really believed him when he said he was staying? He shook his head, clearing them of those thoughts, and instead walked back into the room where Mary was still drawing.

"How are you doing?" He asked as he gently sat beside her, giving her shoulder a very light pat to let her know that he was there again.

"Good." She curtly replied, too focused on the drawing to worry about anything else. With that said, Garry continued to help her whenever needed, and another couple hours passed before they finally finished. As Mary dragged him down the hall to go play with her, he couldn't help but feel the intense urge to help her. It was then that he resolved that he would do everything in his power to help her succeed in everything he taught her, no matter what.

After all, they had all the time in the world to work with.


	6. Birthday Bonding

Birthday Bonding

Another month of lessons and play had passed since Mary received her glasses, and while Mary herself was having the time of her life, she did start to notice that Garry was getting noticeably less enthusiastic about things, and seemed to generally not be in the mood to do much with her beyond teaching anymore. While she was very thankful that she was now really beginning to learn to read and write, she was also worried that maybe Garry wanted to leave and go do his own thing… She really didn't want him to do that – she wanted him to stay and keep teaching and playing with her, so to do that, she had to come up with some sort of plan to make him want to stay.

She stopped her doodling on the floor of the black room, setting aside the chalk she was holding, and she smiled at her latest drawing. It depicted her and Garry standing together, holding hands. Granted, it was kind of difficult to tell who each person was, because despite the fact that she had been taking drawing lessons for just about two months now, she still wasn't very good at it, but Garry assured her each and every day that she was improving, and that made her feel like it was all worth it, since it was Garry telling her… She again looked at her drawing, examining it a little closely, and allowed a smile to form on her face.

She blushed and placed her hand over where her heart would be, since she knew the location from all the books she had read. Garry was her first friend, the one who decided to stay and play with her, even though he learned her terrible secret. He was the one who decided to teach her, even though she knew practically nothing at the time, and he was the one who she had started to fall in love with more and more. It was embarrassing for her to think about it, but it was true, he did everything he could to help her and that only made her love for him increase daily.

Mary let out a sigh, and picked up the chalk she was doodling` with, and started to walk back to her room. That day was one of the two break days that they got in a 'week'. Garry had explained to her the concept of time – weeks, months, years, minutes, hours, and so on, but the concept still confused her, but if Garry was willing to explain things to her, she was willing to learn about them at any rate. If she remembered correctly sixty hours went into a minute… or was it the other way around? Whatever, she could just ask Garry, since he seemed to know everything.

"I wonder where he is, anyway." She muttered. She asked him to play with her earlier that day, but he said that he wasn't in the mood and that he would play with her tomorrow. She was a little upset, but she decided not to press the issue, after everything he had done for her, she guessed that he didn't need to play with her _all _the time. She only hoped that he wasn't talking with Red…

She shook the thought away as she entered her house, and then the door to her room. Unlike before, where it was cluttered with everything imaginable, Garry had spent nearly an entire day with her cleaning the place up. Now she could actually SEE her floor, black as it was. She could distinctly remember Garry promising that he would make a 'rug' for her, so it would be a different color.

"I wonder when he's going to get around to that," She mused to herself as she went to the several drawers that Garry had created to be along the wall opposite of her bed not too long ago. She opened the lowest drawer, which had all of the chalk, and she dropped the ones she was carrying before closing it again. She then glanced up at the vase containing the blue rose atop the dressers, and looked at it for a few seconds, before she decided to leave. With that out of the way, she walked out of the house, and began to take a stroll through the road she had created in this blackened room, trying to figure out what exactly she could do for Garry, since he seemed so bored lately.

Well, there was one way to try and figure out what to do, and that was to just simply go ask him what would make him feel better! With that plan in mind, she left the black room, and went out in the dark halls of the gallery. She already knew exactly where Garry was most likely to be, so it only took her a minute or so to reach the door to the library, and open it up, and she saw the bright light on and Garry over on one of the chairs, his attention focused solely on the book he was reading.

"Hey, Garry!" She called out, and she giggled as she made him jump. She jogged the rest of the distance over to where he was, and stood by his chair.

"Mary!" He quickly glanced over to her, placing a hand over his heart, "You scared me!"

"I'm sorry!" She clapped her hands together and bowed slightly, something she had seen him do when he apologized to her or Red. Garry did seem to calm down when she eyed him, so she stopped doing it, and then went to the side of his chair, where she could look at the book he was reading, "What are you reading?"

"This is way beyond you," He warned her, "But it's called A Game of Thrones, the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series." He showed her the blue cover, which had a sword on it.

"Ohhh, what's it about?" She asked, her eyes widening as she looked at the sword, and they shined with interest.

"I can't tell you much, I've only gotten a hundred pages in, nor do I think you'd want to know what's going on…" He shuddered as he told her told her. He then smiled as he looked over to her, "So what can I do for you?"

"Can I see that book?" She asked, getting completely side tracked. It was such a thick book, and the picture on the front was neat! She wanted to see other images too!

"Sure." He handed it to her, and watched in amusement as her eyes bugged out behind her glasses, and she flipped through the pages, keeping her thumb in the spot where he was so she wouldn't lose his page.

"How can you read this? The text is so little and there are so many pages!" She looked awed as she handed him the book back, causing him to laugh as he took it back.

"When you get better at reading, you'll be able to do it too," he assured her as he reached over to pat her head, "But yeah, like I said, it's way above your level for now. This is a book meant for adults, and some of the themes and things that happen are definitely not for children."

Mary crossed her arms, annoyed that he was considering her a child, but she dropped it, and instead remembered why she had come there, "Oh! Garry! I wanted to ask you why you seem to be so bored now!"

"You think I'm bored?" He asked, a little jarred at the abrupt change of subject. He was slowly getting used to it, due to how eccentric Mary was, but there were times like now when it still caught him off guard.

"Yes!" She nodded her head eagerly, her glasses nearly falling off from how enthusiastically she was nodding. She quickly reached up and adjusted them right when they were about to fly off, fortunately.

"I'm not that bored," He gently pointed out, "I'm reading, after all, and that's keeping me entertained."

"No, I mean you seem bored whenever you play with me," She bluntly explained, not even bothering to hide the fact that it hurt her that he wasn't playing with her.

She saw him quickly hide his own pained expression, and he tried to hide it with a smile, "Mary… I don't want to make you feel bad, so I promise tomorrow that I'll play with you, ok?"

"D – Do you want to though?" She asked, suddenly feeling bad. She was happy to hear that Garry was going to play with her, but it felt like she went about it the wrong way, perhaps…

"I'll do whatever you want to do." Garry answered, again reaching over to pat her head.

She realized that perhaps forcing him to play with her wasn't the best of options, "Garry… You don't have to. I know you're a grown up, and you just don't like to do kid things, right?" She looked to the ground, feeling a bit ashamed for practically forcing his hand.

"Being a grown up doesn't mean never having fun," he told her as his gaze returned to his book, "Mary, I don't want you to feel left out or bad that I'm not being with you, so I'll play with you, ok? So don't feel bad."

She hated how conflicted she was feeling now. He was saying that he would play with her! So why did it feel like she just did something very wrong by forcing him to do it? She nodded, but felt bitter as she walked out of the library and stood in the hall for a little bit. Was she really going to force him to play with her? She loved him, and she at least learned from her older sister that lovers have to make 'com-pro-mises' for one another. Her old sister had explained to her that the word meant that each person had to give up or change some things to make the relationship work.

While she and Garry weren't exactly in a relationship, perhaps she could do something for Garry instead. What if he didn't like her anymore because she was forcing him to do things?! She didn't like that thought at all, and she walked in the halls dejectedly, trying to figure out something to do. Eventually she sat against a wall, bringing her legs up to her chest, and wrapping her arms around them.

"Hey, what's with the long face?" A high-pitch voice asked.

Mary perked her head up, and realized that she had wandered into one of her favorite rooms, and she couldn't help but smile as she saw all the adorable dolls along the wall, their red eyes staring at her as she ran over and picked one of them up and gave it a hug. She hadn't even realized that she opened a door, and that there was a giant painting on the opposite end, though there was nothing inside of it at the moment.

"Hello? Earth to Mary, do you read me?" The doll in her hands called out.

She looked down at the doll she was hugging, and smiled, "It has been a while!"

"Yeah," The doll muttered, glaring over at his family snickering behind her, since Mary had specifically picked out her of every single doll yet again, "What's up with the glasses?" She asked as he looked back to Mary, who was still smiling so wide that she could have sworn she could hear it.

"Garry made them for me! Aren't they pretty?" She adjusted them so her blue eyes looked over the rim of the frame.

The doll looked closely, and finally she shrugged her small limbs, "I dunno, I guess it looks fine."

Mary huffed her cheeks out, "You're supposed to say that they look very cute!"

"Then they are very cute!" The doll quickly agreed.

"Well… You know, if you honestly don't think they are, you don't _have_ to lie to me." Garry taught her that lying was wrong, and that you should always be honest. She also couldn't help but realize uncomfortably that she was doing the same thing to the dolls that she did to Garry… Was she really that forceful? The doll she was holding actually looked very surprised by her statement, and when she looked up, she noticed the others were similarly quiet as they looked at her. "What's so surprising?" She asked.

"It's the fact that you claim that we don't have to agree with you, I think." The doll in her hands explained, deciding to be very blunt, which probably for the best when it came to Mary, "Usually you get really upset if someone doesn't agree."

"I…" She paused, remembering a time when she had ripped one of the dolls in two when it had disagreed with her over something. She couldn't even remember what the disagreement was, but it was probably not worth doing that for, "I guess I don't care as much anymore." Especially since Garry had started reading books to her and explaining basic concepts to her, like sharing, respecting others, and knowing when not to say things, among other things.

"I see…" The doll in her hand muttered. Mary could see that the doll still looked suspicious, and she felt pained that she could cause such a reaction in anyone… Had she really been so horrible before?

"Oh! It's actually good that you came here!" She exclaimed, allowing the uncomfortable thoughts to pass, and she smiled again at the doll in her hands.

"You mean, you came to us." The doll corrected her.

"Right, whatever." Mary dismissed it, "I think Garry is getting bored, and I'm feeling bad about forcing him to do something he doesn't want to do, so I want to try and make it up to him and tell him that he doesn't need to do whatever I want to do!" She let out all in one breath, much to the amazement of the dolls assembled there.

"Huh," The doll again eyed her oddly, "You've really changed."

Mary frowned, looking down at the doll intently, and then at the dolls along the wall, who were nodding their heads in agreement, "What do you mean?"

"It's nothing." The doll decided against elaborating, and its stitched mouth formed into its usual smile, "So you want to apologize or something?"

"No, I just want him to know that I like his help and he doesn't need to play with me if he doesn't want to." She explained again for the doll. It nodded its head a few times, with its arms now crossed.

"Well… I guess since you have so many art supplies in your room, you could maybe make him something to show your appreciation." She suggested to Mary, "That would be a good place to start, I think.

"A-pre-ci-a-tion?" Mary sounded out the word, "what does that mean?" She looked eagerly down at the doll.

"Um, to show how much you like him." The doll clarified for her, and several of the other dolls along the walls were snickering, since she didn't know the word that all of them were aware of. The doll noticed Mary frown, and she could see that Mary looked hurt for a split second, before expertly hiding it away.

"Oh, ok!" She nodded, ignoring the laughing dolls, "Yeah, that sounds good, but what should I make?"

"Well," The doll looked to the family of dolls behind him, "Do you lot have any idea?"

"A card!" One at the end of the row piped up. That seemed to gather a bunch of support, with other dolls beginning to call out the same thing.

"Oh! A card sounds nice!"

"Yes, a card!"

The doll she was holding turned back to her, "Well, there's your answer. I think you should make him a card."

"A card?" She mumbled, looking aside. Her gaze was bit unfocused for a bit, but then shook her head and looked back at the doll she was holding, "So… What kind of card?"

"I don't know, how about a birthday card? I know people love getting those things!" Mary's face lit up – Yes! A birthday! She could distinctly remember a time when someone would always visit her on what they considered to be her 'birthday', and that person would bring her all sorts of things… It had been so long since those times, and it wasn't until recently that she was as happy as she had been back then. Garry had done so much for her, that she could return the favor somehow, and make him happy!

"That sounds good!" She waved enthusiastically at all the dolls sitting there, "Thank you for your help!" With that she rushed out of the room, still holding the doll in her arms.

"Hey! You forgot to let me down!" The doll yelled as she ran with her dangling in her grip. Fortunately Mary had a tight grip, but it was still disconcerting to be shook around so much, and she was getting very dizzy.

Mary came to a halt, and then brought the doll up to her face, "I need help spelling," she admitted, blushing a bit as she did so, "I'm not very good at it."

"Oh… well…" She noticed that Mary seemed to be hanging on whatever she was saying, and for some reason, she felt as if she had to oblige this new Mary… She didn't want to hurt her feelings. "Fine…" She huffed. She actually felt kind of good when Mary gave her an appreciative smile.

"Thank you." Mary replied, and continued onward to her house at a much slower pace. Shortly after that, the two rushed through the door to Mary's house, and then ran into Mary's room, and the doll let out a whistle as Mary walked over to the dresser and pulled out a piece of construction paper and some markers, pencils, and crayons.

"Wow, your room is really clean." The doll noted in surprise, looking all around the room, "Garry has done wonders to the place."

"We fixed it up a little while ago," Mary explained, walking over to a table that she and Garry made together. It was a little uneven, with one foot being a bit shorter than the other three, but it didn't matter too much, since it was still sturdy. She set the supplies down on the table, and the doll in one of the seats, and then she sat down herself, looking down at the mess of supplies in front of her, wondering where exactly she should start. She looked over to the doll, "So where should I start?"

"Start by folding the paper in half – you know what a card looks like, right?" The doll pointed to a piece of construction paper, and Mary immediately went for a green colored piece of paper.

"I- I think I know what a card is," She mumbled, though it was quite obvious after observing her for more than a few seconds that she seemed to be quite clueless.

"It's ok to say no, you know." The doll stated, shaking her head as she watched Mary toy around with the paper for a little bit. Mary set it down, and let her hair cover her eyes.

"You'll make fun of me if I do." She stated what she believed to be fact, not wanting to look at the doll that was surely to laugh at her. This was why she liked Garry – the other people in the gallery would always point and laugh at her when she didn't know a word or know what something was.

The doll's smile faded, and it shook it head, "Well… I won't make fun of you."

"Really?" Mary asked, looking up to the doll. She didn't know if she could believe it, but she was so starved for compassion, that she would believe it.

"Yeah," The doll nodded, "Look. A card is basically just a piece of paper that is folded and has a message inside – in this case, it would say 'happy birthday' since that is the kind of card you want to make for him. You can also draw pictures in it, you know, that sort of thing."

"Ok!" She set aside the folded green paper, and went for a more cream colored piece of construction paper, and folded that as instructed, and on the cover she started to write, "Hah – Pee – Birth – Day." She sounded out as she started to write it down.

"Hey, you spelled it wrong," The doll pointed out, "There's two P's in happy, not one." It hopped onto the table, and reached down to point at the incorrectly spelled word.

"Are you being serious?" Mary asked, looking up at the doll warily.

"Yes, I promise I'm being serious." she assured her.

Mary looked back down at the drawing, and crudely forced in a P in-between the other P and the Y of the word 'Happy'. She then looked at the second word, "Did I spell birthday right?"

"The e needs to be an I," The doll continued to explain, "Birth with an I means to be born, Berth with an e is a place where you put a boat."

She nodded, and scribbled out the e and put an I there instead, "Is that better?" Mary asked, looking up at the doll for guidance.

"Much better," The doll nodded. Mary smiled, and adjusted her glasses as she opened the card up to begin drawing on the inside. "Hey, Mary, what's with the glasses?" The doll repeated her earlier question.

"Oh, Garry said that I was 'far-sighted', whatever that is." She shrugged, "It makes it so I can read without getting really close to things." She smiled, though her gaze was still fixed down on the card as she tried to figure out what to put there, "It really helps with my homework and other assignments!"

"Homework?" The doll tilted its head questioningly, "He has you doing homework?"

Mary nodded, "Yeah, he is teaching me." She reached over to a piece of paper that she wasn't using, and wrote down a few equations she was doing for Garry, and the doll watched with interest as the girl before her proved that she was slowly breaking out of her illiterate and uninformed shell.

"I knew that much, but I didn't realize how seriously you two took it." The doll let out as she watched Mary finish up a few basic math problems.

"We take it very seriously," She exclaimed, smiling brightly at the doll now, "He is teaching me a lot of things!"

"Yeah, I can tell." The doll admitted sincerely, "The change in you is already very noticeable."

"What do you mean?" Mary repeated her question from earlier now. The doll paused, wonder whether she should tell Mary, but finally decided to oblige her, since Mary had similarly also answered her earlier question.

"You're not as impulsive, and you don't get as angry as you used to, and you actually care about how others feel now. You've matured." She explained to Mary.

Mary's smile disappeared, and she looked down, feeling ashamed, her earlier uncomfortable thoughts resurfacing, "I wasn't that bad before, was I?"

"You were horrible," The doll again went the blunt route, "We would always avoid you because of how you acted. If you didn't get your way, then bam – we lost our head and had to spend a long while fixing ourselves up."

"I – I'm sorry…" She muttered, refusing to look up at the doll out of shame, "So that's why you avoided me."

"Yeah." The doll replied, shaking its head up and down. She watched Mary let out a sigh, and finally look up again.

"But I'm better now, right?" She looked hopeful, and the doll could see that she was genuinely sorry for what she did back then… This new Mary was quite a sight to behold.

"I said you were, and I stand by that. You actually feel sorry, which is also something I never thought possible from you... I'll pass the word along to my family about you now, but old habits die hard, or so they say." The doll shrugged.

"What does that mean?" Mary asked a little hesitantly, but like before, the doll didn't laugh at her, and just explained it calmly.

"It means that it will take a while for them to accept that you aren't going to rip them apart every time you appear and take one of them." She explained so Mary could understand, and she saw the painting nodding her head.

Mary let out a sad sigh, "I see…"

"Anyway, let's get back to the card," The doll suggested, "It's not going to write itself you know."

She smiled, "No, it won't! What should I do inside?" Mary looked back down at the inside of the card, and her hand hovered over the page, uncertain of what to write or draw.

"I'd recommend drawing a picture or something," The doll shrugged, "And then put –love, Mary, at the bottom right of the paper when you're done." It pointed to the exact spot she should put that, and then sat back down across from Mary where it could watch her progress easily.

"Ok," Mary went to work, and she drew a smaller version of herself and Garry, smiling together out in the sunshine in a grassy field on the left of the inside of the card. She paused and looked at the blue sky she was drawing, and she reached forward to touch it.

"Your dream of seeing the sky hasn't changed?" The doll asked. Everyone in the gallery knew that Mary wished that she were a real girl. They all knew Mary's desire to leave and go see the sky.

"No, it hasn't," She shook her head, and sadly smiled up at the doll.

"You know… With him in here, you can get out." The doll mumbled. Mary was silent, not letting out a single sound of acknowledgement. "You're the only one of us capable of escaping, and Garry seems to be a nice enough guy. We've all grown to like him, and he isn't as afraid of anyone in the painting anymore like he was before. I'm sure he wouldn't mind taking your place."

Mary glared at her, looking almost like her old self so much that the doll actually backed up quickly more than a dozen paces to the other side of the table. She then growled out, "I'm not leaving him in here alone."

"What if he leaves you?" The doll asked, realizing that while Mary _did _get upset by what she said, there was still no danger. Mary made no signs to attack her, so she inched her way back forward.

"He won't." Mary shook her head, her glare slowly beginning to fade.

"But what if he does?" The doll pressed, making the rest of the distance across the table, and again taking its seat across from Mary.

"Then…" She bit her bottom lip, "He… He belongs out there, so… I guess I would be ok with him going… He taught me so much already and…" She stopped, feeling tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

"Woah! Hey! Stop crying!" The doll lifted her arms up and started waving frantically, "It was just a hypothetical situation!"

"Hy-po-the-ti-cal?" Mary sounded out, taking off her glasses so she could wipe her eyes without them getting in the way. With that done, she put them back on, though her eyes were still shining a bit.

"It hasn't happened, and it might not even happen," The doll explained quickly, "So it's just a way of saying 'what if' this happened."

She nodded, "Ok… You don't think he wants to leave, do you?" Mary fearfully looked at the doll, her hands shook a bit with even the mere thought of Garry leaving her, however hypothetical it was.

"No." The doll shook her head, "I don't think so."

"Do you mean that?" Mary asked, though she did feel a bit better already, since the doll shot it down so quickly.

The doll was silent for a small bit, and finally she nodded, her head, "Yeah, I do mean it actually. Garry likes you, and I don't think he will leave you in here, especially since he isn't even close to finishing your education. Even if he wasn't teaching you though, I don't think he'd leave you, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would do that."

Mary let a small smile onto her face, "It's selfish, but that makes me happy." She looked back down at the drawing, but instead of looking at the sky, she now looked at Garry and her holding hands. She didn't even realize how happy the image made her – how happy she was that Garry was willing to stay with her.

"I think in this case, that's ok." The doll replied. After that the two were a bit more subdued, but Mary managed to muster up enough cheer to write a little bit more in the card and finish it. She then made an envelope at the Instruction of the doll, and then wrote 'Garry' in big letters across the envelope. With that done, she escorted the doll back to her doll room to be with her family, and then she walked to the library with the card in hand to go see Garry.

As she neared the room, she started to feel nervous – what if he didn't like the card? She felt very nervous as she took hold of the doorknob to the library with her free hand, and with a last breath, she turned the knob and entered the library, and she saw Garry still sitting there, silently reading his book, with no one else around. He looked almost peaceful as he read with no one distracting him, and Mary again wondered if she should bolt, but she held her ground.

Letting out one last breath, Mary stepped the last few feet forward, "G – Garry?" She meekly called out to him.

He looked up from his book for the second time that day to see Mary standing there, and he smiled as he watched her walk toward him, "Oh, Mary, what's up now?"

She had the card hidden behind her back, and she slowly walked over to his side, "I wanted to give you something."

"Oh?" His eyebrows rose in surprise, "Really?" He did notice that she had one hand held behind her back, but he decided to play along and pretend he didn't notice for her benefit.

She nodded, "Here you go!" She thrust the card forward, holding it with both hands, and she had her face down and her eyes closed, and her whole face was bright red, "I thought this would make you feel better!" She stated so quickly that Garry was surprised her tongue didn't twist into a knot.

Garry blinked a few times as he looked down at the card in surprise. He didn't know what to expect, but this definitely wasn't what he was imagining. He reached forward and accepted the card, "Thank you." He let out, though he was still a bit confused as to why he was receiving a card in the first place..

He then looked at the card, and saw that it said 'Happy Birthday' on the front. He smiled a bit as he opened it and saw the drawing Mary drew of him and her in a grassy field with the sun shining in the blue sky. Looking to the right page, he could see some text written that said, 'You don't need to do everything I say', and then at the bottom, he noticed that she wrote 'Love, Mary'. He turned it over to look on the back, where he saw that Mary had simply scribbled some colors back there in an attempt to make it look pretty.

"Do you like it?" She hesitantly asked, peeking her head up, since she was still hiding her face from view. She could see that he was smiling at her, and she again flushed and looked down.

"I like it a lot, actually." He admitted, reaching across and patting her head, unable to get rid of the wide smile on his face, "I'm very touched."

"What does that mean?" She asked, and then she again looked up as Garry was patting her head, and her eyes widened in alarm, "A – And why are you crying?!"

He chuckled, wiping his eyes, "It means that you made me happy, and as for why I'm crying, it's because I really like this gift, so don't worry about it. Would you believe me if I told you that this was the first birthday card I've ever received?"

"Um, I don't know." She answered truthfully, feeling a bit sheepish at not being able to answer what was probably a fairly simple question.

"Are you not familiar with the customs regarding birthdays?" He asked, "On your birthday, you generally get a lot of cards and presents."

"I – I think I remember something like that… A long time ago." She stated, "But it has been so long… I can barely remember." It was just a vague memory in the back of her head now, something that she only wished she could remember with clarity.

He noted that, but decided to not change the subjected and he stated, "It's a bit like Christmas lite for some people, especially children."

She remembered Garry reading her a few Christmas books, so she was fortunately aware of what that was, "Really? You get that many presents on your birthday?" She asked.

"Yeah, but that's not all. It's time that you spend with your family and people you love." He sighed, "Unfortunately I never really experienced them that much."

"Why not?" Mary asked with a frown, detecting the sudden drop in his cheer as he recalled his past. He glanced at her, and then shook his head, as if he decided upon something.

"I guess I can tell you. I don't know if I ever told you, but when I was a child, my mom and dad both died in a car crash…" He paused, "That was… Twenty two years ago, if I recall correctly." He shook his head, "I was only three at the time, so I honestly only have very vague memories of my mom and dad, but because of that, I had to go live in an orphanage, since apparently neither side of my family wanted to take me in."

"Garry…" Mary mumbled, feeling sorry for him, "You're so nice though, who wouldn't want to take you in?!"

He grinned as he reached over and patted her head, "That's how I am now, but young children are a LOT of responsibility and hard work. I don't necessarily blame them now, but when I was growing up, I was a bit resentful that my own family didn't want to take care of me."

Mary again was still frowning, and felt kind of… mad that others weren't able to appreciate Garry like she could. She decided to try and show him how much she cared for him by jumping up onto the chair and sitting on his lap, where she quickly wrapped her hands around him, and rested her head on his chest. "Garry, I'm sorry." She mumbled, "But I a-pre-ci-ate you." She stated the word she learned earlier, and she closed her eyes as she held him.

"Don't be sorry, and I appreciate you too," He gently rubbed her back as she leaned into him, "When I was in the orphanage I never received cards or anything from my family. Thankfully my caretakers were very kind to me, and I remember for fifteen years, they would prepare a cake for my birthday and everyone in the orphanage would celebrate it along with me, so my birthdays weren't always bad, but like I said, the fact that I never got anything from my extended family bothered me a lot back then."

"Why wouldn't they send you anything?" Mary asked, still holding onto him tightly.

"I don't know." He shrugged and shook his head, "I just kind of accepted it over time, and instead of being angry about it, I just started to draw to let out my frustration. Over time, I just started to enjoy drawing, and I imposed a challenge on myself to draw at least one thing a day. I guess it could be viewed as a form of escapism for me, though I wasn't necessarily a depressed child by any means. I was well taken care of, and when I was eighteen, the staff allowed me to go live on my own, so I took them up on that offer and got my own apartment and went to college."

"What are those?" Mary asked.

"An apartment is a building with a lot of small houses, and college is a place where you go to learn more, but it costs a lot of money." He explained to her the words he knew she was unfamiliar with.

"I see." She mumbled, letting out a soft breath as she still held him. She could actually hear his heartbeat, and it was actually soothing to her, and with Garry rubbing her back, she was becoming very relaxed.

"So anyway, I guess I got a little off track… The reason I'm so happy by receiving this card is because it's the first birthday card I've ever received, so thank you." He sincerely thanked her, looking down at her with a wide smile.

"It's no problem…" She mumbled, feeling a blush cross her face as he smiled at her. She decided to try and bury her face in his chest so he couldn't see, but it was a futile effort, since he undoubtedly already saw.

"Though I wonder," He mumbled, reaching up with the hand that was rubbing Mary's back and tapping his chin with it, "Are you feeling guilty?"

"W – Why would I feel that?" She asked quickly – so quickly in fact that she gave it away immediately.

"I ask that because of what you wrote in the card," He pointed out her message, "I don't need to do everything you say." He then looked back to her, "Do you feel like you're forcing me to do things against my will?"

She nodded, feeling her vision getting blurred as tears began to creep up, "I don't want you to get mad at me because I'm forcing you to do things… I want you to stay with me and play, but I also want you to be happy."

"Mary," He sighed reaching down and rubbing her back soothingly again, "It'll do a lot more than that to make me leave, you know that."

"B- But are you being serious, or are you just saying that to make me happy?" She asked, tears beginning to go down her face, "I can never tell anymore. You treat me like a kid all the time, and I can't tell if you're doing things because you think I won't like the truth, or because you honestly mean it!"

He blinked a few times in surprise, "Huh, you have a more mature point of view than I give you credit for." He admitted.

She giggled despite her tears, "So stop treating me like a kid!" She unwrapped her hands from around him, and gently reached up and pretended to hit his head in annoyance.

He sighed, "If it makes you feel better Mary, then I will try to stop doing that." He looked to the ceiling, "I suppose I'm getting a little bored in here. Other than books and drawing, there's not much else to do in here. Even as an art teacher, there's only so much drawing I can do before even I get burnt out and need a break from it."

"S – So what can I do to make you feel better?" She asked, looking up at him eagerly. If she could do anything to help, she would do it within a heartbeat.

He reached down and removed her glasses so he could wipe her eyes of the stray tears coming out, and then he replaced her glasses, "First of all, I want you to stop crying – it makes me feel bad when I see you doing that." She sniffled a few times and nodded, trying to hold back her tears. "And, well, honestly I just need a rest, I think. Reading this is a good start, and it's allowing me to relax and take my mind off of things for a little while."

"You don't like it in here?" She asked when he stated that he wanted to 'take his mind off thing'. She felt a bit fearful, wondering if that meant he was planning on leaving.

"It's hard to adjust to," He admitted, "I've gotten better about it, but it's still difficult to get used to the odd rules of this world, and that isn't even mentioning the fact that everyone I know in here besides you and Red are dolls or other inanimate objects that move and talk on their own." He shuddered, "But Mary… Don't worry about it, I can handle myself, and I'll play with you tomorrow, I promise."

"No!" She shook her head, "I don't want you to get bored and leave! I know it's selfish, but you're my friend! If that means you won't play with me for a year or two, then that's fine! I just don't want you to go away!" She knew a year was the longest measurement of time he taught her, so she knew that saying that was probably the most effective way to get her point across, even if she didn't know exactly how long one year was.

"And now we come to the real issue," He muttered, letting out a deep sigh, "Mary, what happened that made you so fearful to lose people close to you?"

She wiped her eyes, trying to keep her tears at bay, "You read my diary, didn't you?" She whispered as she looked down, again wrapping her hands around him, holding him tightly as she slowly began to recall memories that always made her feel sad.

"It has been a while," He admitted, "Can you tell me with your own words?"

She nodded, "A long time ago – I don't even remember how long – a man used to come in here all the time and play with me, giving me all sorts of things from the real world. He would tell me stories about how it was out there, and the one thing I remember the most from him is how he explained the sky, how it was all blue and there were white puffy things up there. Ever since then I've really wanted to see it so bad, but he would tell me about other things too! I loved all of his stories!"

"And then what happened?" He asked, remembering now how she wrote over and over that she missed him. This wasn't going to have a happy ending, of that he was sure.

"The man – Guertena – He never came back." She mumbled, tears brimming in her eyes, "I waited, and I waited, but he never came… I thought maybe he was tired of me and wanted to do something else, or that he hated me…"

Garry shook his head, "None of those things are true." He assured her.

"Then why didn't he ever come again? I don't want the same thing to happen to you!" She cried, "I don't want to see you go away forever!"

"It'll happen to all of us, eventually…" Garry mumbled, "Mary, he didn't stop coming because he was bored of you, or that he didn't love you anymore… It's because he passed away."

"Passed away?" She mumbled, unfamiliar with the words. Garry grimaced, wondering how he could possibly explain it so that she would understand. The concept of time was something Mary was having a very difficult time grasping.

"It means that he…" He looked aside, trying to find a delicate way to put this so that she would understand, "When someone passes on, their body stops working." He sighed, "It just happens with the passage of time."

"His body stops working?" She muttered, looking down, and then back up to his face as realization crossed her expression, "You mean, he… died?"

"Yes." He nodded, "I believe he always loved you, and always wanted to be with you, but time just caught up with him and he passed on. People just naturally die over the course of time in the real world."

"Time…?" She mumbled, trying to recall his lessons, "How long ago was he alive in your world?" She asked, fearful of the answer.

"Guertena has been gone for over a hundred years," He told her, rubbing her back as she continued to sit in his lap.

"Is that a really long time?" She asked, she knew a year was a very long measure of time, but she couldn't really relate to it in anyway.

Garry knew that the girl still lacked a proper understanding of the concept of time, so he nodded, "A single year is a very long time. A hundred years is difficult for even me to imagine, even with history books explaining what happens within that time frame."

"So he didn't leave me because he hated me?" She asked, blinking a few times as some of her worst fears and nightmares were unrealized.

"No, I seriously doubt it." He answered with a shake of his head. He noticed that Mary looked relieved, but then suddenly another more alarmed expression crossed her face. Her eyes widened, and she started to chew on her bottom lip.

"Then…" She looked fearfully up at him, "Are you going to d – die soon too?" She realized just then that she got rid of an old fear, and replaced it with a brand new one.

"Not any time soon!" He exclaimed, "I'm only twenty-five, I still have quite a while left in me before I'm gone!"

"B – but you will be gone eventually…" She mumbled, feeling tears welling up yet again, "And then I will be alone all over again."

"Mary…" He mumbled, trying to comfort her by rubbing her back and setting his card aside so he could wrap his other around her. She seemed to relax somewhat from his embrace, but she still held him tightly as she continued to talk.

"Ever since you have stayed with me, I have been happier than I can remember! I don't want you to go away! Please don't leave me!" She cried as she held him as tight as she could, and she pressed her face tightly into his chest, afraid that he would simply disappear.

"Mary, I'm not going anywhere." He reiterated, "And I don't even know if I'm aging in here." He decided that since Mary was so distressed, that he would let her know his theory now.

"What?" She blinked a few times to rid her eyes of the immediate tears, and then she looked up at him in surprise, "What do you mean?"

"I don't know if I'm getting older," He repeated, "For instance, I haven't had the need to shave for the months that I've been in here, I also don't need to cut my hair. It's as if time has been put on pause while I stay in here… Though why do I still need to eat?" He muttered, "The rules of this world are very odd, and I truly can't understand them no matter how hard I try."

"Then… You won't die?" She muttered, hoping that is what he meant by everything he stated.

"I don't this so," He told her, "But I know for a fact that I'm not aging, and if that's the case, then I won't be dying any time soon."

"I'm sorry for being so selfish…" She mumbled, unraveling her hands again to wipe her eyes.

He chuckled, "Despite what you insist, you are still just a young little girl Mary. It's understandable why you'd want someone to be around to play with you. I understand why you want someone to interact with, and to be your friend."

"I don't want to be so selfish though!" She yelled at him, giving him a half-hearted glare.

He let out a loud laugh, "You've matured a lot since I've known you Mary, especially if this has you so conflicted." He smiled down at her, causing her to pout and cross her arms, looking away from him. "Anyway, I appreciate the card, and I promise you that I just need one break day a week. So let's make a compromise, shall we?"

There was that word! Mary's ears perked up, and she looked over to him, "Ok!" She looked eagerly at him as he began to talk.

"Let's say that on the first break day, I can come in here and read all day. On the second, I'll play with you. Is that fine with you?" He asked kindly. She looked down and began to consider it, and slowly nodded.

"First break day is yours, second is mine?" She simplified it, looking back up at him.

"That sounds about right." He nodded.

"Ok! I can do that!" She exclaimed, "Do you mind if I read in here with you though? I won't bother you! I just want to try and get better at reading!"

"That's fine," He agreed, "Reading on your own time is definitely one of the best ways to improve your skill anyway."

"So… Tomorrow we'll play. I'll let you decide what we'll do," Mary claimed, jumping off of the chair, "For now though, I'm going to go find a book to read!" Garry watched her as she ran off through the towering bookshelves, and he shook his head. That girl was far too energetic at times. Still, he smiled and looked down at the card she had made him. The fact that she cared for him so much made him feel very happy, and he just didn't have the heart to tell her that his birthday was, at least according to his calculations, still at least four or five months off. He decided to pocket the card, not wanting to put it on the table where he could accidentally lose it, and he continued to read the book he picked.

Meanwhile, Mary had come out holding several children's books, and sat across from him. He could barely hear her muttering words under her breath as she read the books, and he discreetly watched as she narrowed her eyes and bit her bottom lip on some of the more difficult to pronounce words in there. He felt very proud of her, and actually started to pay more attention to Mary and her attempts to read than his own book.

He finally set down his own book after he read the same paragraph five times, and stood up to sit down next to Mary. She blinked a few times when she felt someone sitting beside her, and looked over to him, "G – Garry?"

"Hey," He gave a small wave, "I hear that you're having some difficulty."

She blushed, and looked back down to the book to try to hide that fact, "I – I'm fine! I don't want to disturb you!"

"You're not disturbing me," He assured her with a smile, "I just want to help you out."

"O – Ok." She mumbled, showing him the page she was on, and he simply watched as she continued to read, and he'd help her with her pronunciation from time to time.

The rest of the day alternated between Garry picking up his own book and reading, and helping Mary read, and a few hours later, the two went off to eat dinner, and then they returned to Mary's room and went to bed. Garry wrapped his arm around Mary as she snuggled against him on her bed, and he closed his eyes, looking forward to watching Mary continue to develop into the kind and loving person she was slowly becoming.


	7. Forever Young

Forever Young

"So, do you like it?" Mary did a little twirl for her audience, receiving a bunch of claps and cheers, making her blush as she finally came to a stop and bowed to them all, which only increased the cheers., She smiled at all of the blue dolls on the counter, and there was even the massive blue doll cheered in the painting in the doll room she now found herself in.

"Did Garry help you make that?" Chucky asked – she had received his name after Garry had offhandedly talked about how he once saw a movie where there was a killer doll that she reminded him of. The blue doll liked the description a lot, and adopted the name as her own, despite the fact that Chucky was a male name, and as far as anyone else knew, the dolls were almost exclusively female.

"Mary shook her head, "Nope, I made it myself!" She was wearing some new clothes now – instead of the green dress she was so fond of, she decided to draw some jeans and a green blouse to wear instead. It was very simple, but considering the girl wore almost nothing else, the change was absolutely astonishing to the dolls in the room, and Mary even felt like a completely different person.

"Wow," Some of the other dolls in the room let out, and there were even a few 'ohs' and 'aws' mixed in there as well. "So how many clothes do you have now?" A doll from the crowd asked.

"A lot!" Mary exclaimed, and she absolutely loved that fact. A few months ago, Garry had decided to change their wardrobe up, and je created some new clothes for the both of them. Over time, she actually found that she _loved_ having the option between what to wear, and she started to create even more clothes so she'd have even more options, and soon she had almost two full drawers full of clothing in her room, and she still had more ideas of things she could possibly wear too!

"Are you gonna show Garry?" Chucky asked, looking at her with curious eyes. She was leaning off of the side of the counter, swinging her feet from side to side.

She shook his head, "Nah, I think he's getting a little bored of me showing off all of my new clothes to him!" Mary used to show him every single one, but he grew less and less enthusiastic as time went on, and now she only showed him the ones she was really proud of.

"So what are you going to do?" The doll asked, still swinging her legs.

Mary crossed her arms, and with one hand she reached up and began to tap her chin a few times, "I guess I'll go to the library and read. It is Garry's day off, so he is probably in there too."

"Ahhh…" Chucky let out, "So you just want to be close with him, is that it?" The blue doll's face was covered with a wide smile, as its stitched mouth widened to near the breaking point of the fabric.

There were a lot of cheers and howls with that statement, and Mary's face went beet red, "Chucky! Don't say that out loud!" She looked away pointedly, trying to contain her blush, but it was a worthless effort.

Chucky let out some giggles, "Oops, must have slipped!" She covered her mouth to try and contain the giggles, but it was a worthless effort.

Mary let out a sigh and turned to face the dolls again, her blush mostly under control now, "Anyway, I just wanted to show you my new clothes, that's all. I'm heading out now, bye!"

After exchanging a few more farewells, she exited the room, and started to walk towards Garry's favorite room in the gallery. As she walked, her mind began to wander to the past year. Since it had been so long, she had finally understood the concept of time, and even more so when Garry had created a calendar and clock to teach with. The clock had actually worked too, so they now used that to regulate their days and time. As mentioned, it had now been a year since Garry had come in, and Mary felt more knowledgeable then she had ever been before.

Garry claimed that she could read and write as well as a middle school student, and he even claimed that her mathematical skills were far beyond what he ever expected what she could achieve – she was so amazing at the latter apparently that he even called her a prodigy at it, which thrilled her a lot to receive so much praise from Garry. She also loved the fact that she could read so well, and she found herself reading books that Garry recommended, and she actually really enjoyed the Goosebumps series of books a lot, even if they tended to be a bit weird with some of the books.

Her drawing also improved dramatically as well, though she was still quite rough around the edges when it came to that. She was very good at drawing inanimate objects, but drawing people and especially hands and feet eluded her still, but she simply followed Garry's instructions and tried to get better at it each and every day.

While Garry was great at teaching her reading, writing, drawing, and math, he lamented the fact that he couldn't really teach her science, since he explained that it was an almost essential part of learning. He claimed that he wasn't very good at it, and he wouldn't be a good teacher to her, since he barely understood it much himself. Still, he had done some very crude lessons on it for a few weeks, giving her an idea about elements, atoms, and other such things, just so she'd have the foundation of it down.

She was shaken out of her thoughts when she finally reached the door to the library, and she opened it up. Upon seeing that Garry was sitting in his usual spot, she skipped over to, "Hello Garry!"

"Hello," He looked up and waved to her, smiling a bit as he looked back down to the book he was reading. He wasn't wearing his jacket, and was instead wearing some shorts and a loose T-shirt, his favorite thing to wear on his day off. Whenever he taught her however, he would almost always wear khaki pants and a button up shirt, to be more 'professional', or so he said.

"Mistborn?" She muttered as she read the title of the book as she reached his side, "Is it any good?" She leaned against the chair he was sitting in, and her head blocked his view of the book.

"It's very good, actually." He admitted, reaching over and patting Mary's head before gently moving it aside, "I really like the whole magic system it has going for it, using metals and all that stuff."

"Metals?" She muttered, looking up at him, "How does metal help with magic?"

He chuckled, "They drink a vial with little shavings of the metal in it, and then they can do a certain power attributed to that metal." He tried to explain the concept, and he could see that Mary did at least understand it, but she still looked at him weirdly.

"That sounds weird." She concluded, and with a shrug, she went over to the table and tried to find a book she could read, since there were so many of them scattered across the table. She frowned, since she couldn't find a single one to read, and finally she let out a sigh, and stood back up from the table.

He shrugged, "It's a little weird, but very well done. Probably the best system of magic I've read in a book." He explained, his eyes scanning the page to return to their spot, clearly indicating that he wanted to read instead of talk.

She wasn't offended that Garry would prefer to read – it was his day off after all, and he could do pretty much anything he wanted as far as she was concerned. "Oh well, I'm going to go find something to read, you have fun." She told him as she looked over to the bookshelves.

He nodded, "I'll do that – oh before I forgot to mention it, I like the new clothes." She smiled as she walked into the row between the bookshelves, trying to hide her cheer and blush that he had actually noticed. Instead, she wandered through the many columns of bookshelves, trying to find something interesting to read. She stopped however, when she spotted a section called 'erotica', and she blushed a bit, moving over towards that, since her curiosity was taking over. Garry had specifically told her to never enter that section, and while she usually always obeyed him, maybe this once she could go in and take a little peek…

As she entered the aisle, she looked at all the books, and all of them just looked like typical books. She couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed, and she frowned as she pulled out the one nearest to her, and turned it up right to read the title, but saw that there was nothing written on the front cover, it was just a solid red color, so she opened up the book to the middle, deciding to skip what would probably be a boring beginning. She glanced over her shoulders a few times, making sure no one else was present, and she started to read the book in her hands.

Though she had to skip a word here and there, she was beginning to get the gist of what was going on, and she was positive that her face was starting to turn very red as she continued to read the contents of the book. The pair in the book started kissing, and claiming how much they loved each other, and then they got into the bed naked together and… Mary began to shake as she continued to read, and she was positive that steam was going to start coming out of her ears at any minute.

While Garry had given her a very, VERY brief explanation about the female body and such things when she had asked about it – Red had approached her a few hours after the fact with a book she claimed was about 'sex education', and she went over it with her with a very big amount of detail, sparing Mary no expense, and even using her own body as an example. Mary at the time had been horrified, but she did start to notice things afterwards… For instance, she would notice Garry's gaze would linger in certain areas of Red's body whenever the two of them got together, and she noticed how he treated her differently than how he treated Red. She could remember Red telling her about the 'benefits' of being grown up, and how much pleasure she could derive from it, but while at the time she had listed it off as Red trying to traumatize her, after reading this book, perhaps there was some truth to what she was saying?

"I wish I could feel…" Mary mumbled, as she read a bit where the woman was apparently describing the sensation she felt whenever she touched her lover. Mary rubbed the hardcover of the book, and felt nothing, as expected. She didn't even feel pain, or anything that Garry did… It was just another thing that showed her how different from a human she truly was. She shook her head, and adjusted her glasses as she flipped to near the end of the book, where the woman had apparently gotten pregnant, and was describing how excited and happy she was to be carrying the child of her lover. Mary frowned again, and placed her hand over her stomach, wondering what that sensation must feel like… There were two big problems though – she was merely a child who could never age, and secondly, she was a painting.

However… Maybe she and Garry could get into a relationship anyway? Nothing like what the couple in the book was like, but more like… Calling each other a boyfriend and girlfriend? She really liked Garry, and she would love to be in a relationship with him, especially after she had read so many books where a boy and girl fall in love and go on an adventure together. Deciding to confront Garry about this, she took hold of the book, and went to leave the columns of bookshelves, towards where he was seated. However, instead of just Garry being there, Red was seated across from him, and the two were talking about something. Mary frowned, glaring at Red, but she finally averted her eyes to look at Garry, and she let out a deep breath and walked over to him, with the book still in hand.

"Garry!" She called as she ran over to him, hiding the book behind her back for now, trying not to be too obvious about it, "What are you doing?" She came to a stop by his side, and she glanced between the two of them.

He and Red looked over to see her darting towards them and then stopping by his side, and Garry smiled at her where she stood and answered, "We're just talking about random things."

"Like what?" Mary asked, getting sidetracked, her mind momentarily forgetting about the book, and wandering to other thoughts – What could they have possibly been talking about?

Red allowed an amused expression to cross her face, figuring out immediately why Mary was so curious about what they were doing. She reached up to shove her hair over her shoulder, and a light smile crossed her face as she asked, "Why are you so interested, Mary?"

Mary blushed; realizing that perhaps she did sound a bit too interested, and gave herself away. Trying to find a way to distract them she stuttered out, "Uh – Um…" She shook her head, "Never mind, I wanted to ask Garry something important!"

"What is it?" Garry asked, kindly looking in her direction, willing to answer anything she had to ask of him.

She revealed the book she hid behind her back, and lifted it up so Garry could see the nameless cover, "Look at what I found!" Garry looked at it oddly, and frowned when he didn't see a title to read on the cover.

He grabbed the book, and he flipped it open to the first page and his eyes widened comically large, "M – Mary! What are you reading this?!" He slammed the book close, and there was a flush on his face, "You shouldn't read that!"

"What is it?" Red asked excitedly, getting up and going over to Garry's other side, much to Mary's displeasure. She took the book, and opened it up to the first page to read the contents of it, and she started to laugh, "Ah, I see now!"

"You're way too young to be reading that!" Garry pointed out, shaking his head to try and calm own. He honestly didn't think Mary would bring him something like that.

Mary crossed her arms, and was more than a little annoyed at his reaction. "According to you I'm over a hundred years old. I'm more than old enough to be reading it if you are." Garry blinked owlishly at her, unable to form a sentence.

"Mentally you're not older than him," Red pointed out, still smiling at her, "And physically, you're not even ten yet, so I do agree with the fact that you're too young to be reading something like this."

Mary let out a sigh, and uncrossed her arms, feeling hurt that they were treating her like such a child, "A – Anyway, I wanted to ask a question about that!" She wanted to change the subject before they pursued that topic any further, since it was something she didn't want to confront.

"Right and what is that?" Garry asked, finding his voice again, and taking the book away from Red, since he spied her starting to read it. Red gave him a displeased look, but allowed him to keep hold of the book, but she did cross her arms, and not look in his general direction.

"I want to know if you and I could do the stuff in that book together!" Mary's eyes seemed to have stars in them, "It'll be so much fun!" She was so far in her own world, that she completely failed to see all the color drain out of Garry's face.

"W – What?!" Garry cried, "Mary, Red just went over this: you're too young, I don't want to be rude or disrespectful, but I absolutely refuse to do anything with you when you're not even in double digits in terms of years!"

"No!" Mary shook her head quickly, realizing that he was getting the completely wrong idea about what she meant. "I mean just be a boyfriend and girlfriend – we don't need to do the other stuff in there!" She knew she was blushing, and noted that in the future, she should work on wording things a bit better.

Red chuckled, and looked over at the clueless Garry, "I told you that she adored you." Mary again knew that she was probably even redder than before, and she was shaking all over, since she had pretty much confessed her love for Garry. She watched as his initially shocked expression went away, and was replaced instead with a light smile and sagged shoulders.

"Mary…" He let out a long sigh, and he averted his eyes briefly, before turning them back onto her, "I'm sorry, but you're just too young… If you were older I might consider it, but as you are now, no. I'll have to deny you."

Mary felt her heart shatter into pieces, "I – I see…" She mumbled, trying to hold her tears back, she blinked rapidly, and put on an obviously fake smile, "I – I'm going to go now… Bye!" The girl quickly sprinted away to the door of the library, and quickly exited the room, leaving behind a guilty Garry, and a frowning Red.

"Garry, I'm sure you're more than aware that you aren't aging in here – Mary even pointed out that she's over a hundred years old, and yet she hasn't aged a day since she was created." Red pointed out to him, "Telling her she is too young is akin to saying that it will never happen, and that's fine, but you had to go on and say 'if she was older'…" Red sighed, "Come on Garry, why'd you say something dumb like that?"

Garry frowned, "I didn't think of it like that." He felt bad enough that he made her run off to cry, but thinking of it in the way Red put it just made it all worse.

"Clearly." Red mumbled dryly, "You ought to apologize to her, especially since you crushed her heart after she confessed to you." She crossed her arms and looked down at Garry, who was shaking his head.

"Come on; try not to lay it on so thick, I feel bad enough as it is." He grumbled, giving her a glare, which only caused her to start smiling at him, forcing him to drop it and look away.

"Then go on and say you're sorry, or do you want me to chase you around like old times?" She continued to smile, "It would be nostalgic, wouldn't it?"

"You're hilarious." He mumbled, putting in a bookmark at the current page he was on, and he threw the other book on the table. He stood up, and stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles as he did so, "I'm going, so try not to kill me any time soon, ok?"

"Yeah, yeah." Red waved off his concerns, and picked up the book he was callously threw onto the table and she flipped to the first page. She went over to a seat, and sat down, leaning back and crossing her legs as she began to read the book Mary had brought back.

Shaking his head, Garry left the library and went to the one place he was sure Mary would run off to. While she did get upset occasionally the past year he had known her, this was the first time that she darted away from him as fast as she could. His eyes took a little bit to adjust to the general darkness of the gallery, since the library was the only well-lit place in the entire area, and then he went onward towards the black room, since he was pretty sure that Mary would be in her room there.

After walking down the stairs into the black room, and then walking along the road, he arrived at Mary's house, and opened the door. Upon entering the house, he quickly walked forward yet again to the path in front of him where Mary's room was. "Mary?" He called out, as he entered her room. The girl in question was sitting on the bed she recently redrawn to make look much better. It still wasn't amazing, but it was at least identifiable as a bed now. She had her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them, and she hid her face from his view since they were buried into her legs, and she said absolutely nothing as he walked in.

He let out a small sigh, and went over to sit beside the girl on the bed. He leaned against the wall and looked over to her, "Mary. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings." He figured that was a good place to start as any, and it had the added benefit of getting straight to the point.

She finally reacted, and looked up to him, tears were shining in her eyes, and he could see some tear stains covering her cheek, "Can't you just leave me alone for a bit? I don't feel like talking right now."

He nodded, "I'll leave you alone in a little bit, but I just feel like I should explain – I didn't mean to insinuate that it would never happen – I happen to care for you're a great deal."

"But I'm too young, right? So now you're just giving me false hope."

He frowned, "Mary, even if you could age, you realize that I'm sixteen years older than you, right? That is not considered a normal thing anywhere in the world, and in a lot of places it would be considered a very bad thing."

"I don't care." She mumbled, looking straight ahead to avoid staring at Garry.

"I just don't feel comfortable with it…" He tried to explain again, but Mary was quick to interrupt him.

"Garry… I know you're trying to make me feel better, but please, just stop it. I know I LOOK like I'm nine and I may act like it at times, but mentally, even you admitted that I'm at least middle school level now, right? That means I'm what, at least thirteen or fourteen years old now if we go by mental standards? In another five years how old will I be mentally? Now that I'm beginning to learn and understand things, I actually feel like I'm growing up, but no matter what I'll always look like this."

"I can't imagine what that must be like…" He admitted. He tried to think of what it would be like to always be stuck in the body of a child, and he quickly realized now that he would _hate _it… So for Mary, was it any different?

"No, you can't understand." She shook her head, "No one takes children seriously, and everyone here, even you will treat me like a child, no matter how much more mature I become. I'm honest when I – I say that I love you… It's truly real." She finally looked at him directly in the eyes, to try and get her point across.

Garry averted his eyes, feeling very awkward, "Mary… I know what you've said about your mental age but…" Again Mary interrupted him.

"But physically I'm a child, I know…" She let out a dejected sigh.

"Even then, if we got by your 'mental' age as you've called it, you're still too young for me." He tried to explain, hoping that she would understand.

"What about in five years? What then?" She asked, "If in one year I can become like a middle school student, what about in five? When I become like a college student, or in ten, when I'm beyond the need for schooling? What about then?"

He was quiet, "I don't know." He finally answered, and he shook his head sadly, "I'm sorry."

"You'll treat me like a kid, as always. Like everyone else in this gallery does…" She buried her head into her knees again, feeling the sting of tears again, "I can never really grow up, no matter how much I want to."

Garry made a decision right then and there, and he would try to make Mary feel better in any way he could, so he let out a sigh and stated, "Mary, I won't treat you like a child anymore." She actually looked up at that, but instead of the hopeful expression he was expecting, she looked wary and unconvinced.

"You say that now, but will you really stop?" She shook her head, and then made eye contact with him, and honestly told him, "I don't know if I can believe you."

He reached up and scratched his hair, feeling a bit insulted that Mary wouldn't believe him, but given her situation, it wasn't entirely uncalled for. "You got to trust people, Mary. I promise from now on I'll try to treat you more like an adult, if that makes you feel better." He smiled to try and lighten the mood and let her know that he was serious.

"That…" She paused, and then she looked over to him with an actual smile of her own, "That would make me feel a lot better." Though she was still crying, he noted immediately that she did look a lot better than before; perhaps it was because she had gotten rid of the dejected expression, and was now smiling. Either way, he felt much better.

He reached over to pat her on the head, but paused, "Do you mind if I do this still?" She rolled her eyes, and lifted one of her hands to pull his towards her head, where he finished his action. Even though she wanted to be treated like an adult, apparently Mary appreciated it whenever he did that. He smiled and finally asked, "Do you want me to leave you alone now?"

She nodded, "Yeah… I accept your apology. Just let me get it all out of my system before I leave here, ok?" She chuckled, though he could tell that she was still crying. Well, at least he made the situation slightly better.

"All right, you know where you can find me." He stood up and walked to the door, but stayed there for a little bit, and he turned around, "Mary…" He whispered her name. What WOULD he do in a few years, when she began to get old enough? He was always going to be physically twenty-five, and Mary would always be physically nine, but maybe… No… No, it could never work. He shook his head.

"Yes?" She asked, looking at him curiously. He didn't answer for a little bit, and she responded again, "Garry? What is it?"

"No… Never mind." He gave her a half-hearted smile, though he seemed a bit distracted, "I'll be going now, bye."

She watched him as he closed the door, wondering what that was about, but she finally just shook her head and sighed, taking off her glasses and cleaning them, since some of her tears had fallen on the lenses. She felt a mixture of emotions – hate, love, happiness, sadness… So many floating around in her mind that she felt almost overwhelmed. She couldn't recall ever feeling this way, and it was undoubtedly thanks to Garry that she was even feeling like this at all.

She hated – absolutely resented – the fact that he rejected her because of her being a 'kid'. So what if she acted like a child occasionally? She could be mature when she wanted, and she was beginning to become very knowledgeable. She sure didn't feel like a kid anymore! Thankfully, Garry had at least acknowledged that she had matured, and promised her that he would try to treat her as an adult, so that at least made her happy.

She loved Garry… She couldn't get around that fact now, and she felt horribly embarrassed with the way she indicated that to him… Why did she do that? Was it because of Red? Did she just impulsively try to get Garry away from her so she could have him all to herself? She didn't know, but she did know that she felt very sad when he rejected her… She didn't know what the books she read referred to when they mentioned how painful love could be, but now she was beginning to understand.

Still… He did say he would treat her as an adult, so… maybe? Maybe there was a future for it after all? She didn't know, but it was at least something to try to strive for.

With that in mind, she put her glasses back on, and walked over to the desk that Garry made to put all of his and her school supplies on, and she picked up a textbook on math that Garry had taken from the library, and opened it up to the next lesson. The only way to try to prove that she was an adult was to learn more and mature more, so she threw herself willingly into the next lesson, reading the pages and then grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil to start writing down the equations she'd need to know.

Sometimes she wished that Garry wasn't so damn nice to her – then she wouldn't feel obligated to do so much work to prove herself, but… well, he always made her life interesting now, plus, it was one of the reasons she loved him so much. She broke her pencil on the paper, and let out an annoyed sigh. Well, no one said the path would be an easy one.

But she was willing to try anyway.

XxXxXxX

Garry continued to teach her over the months, and soon enough, two more years passed with them in there. It was clear that Garry had gotten used to the world, and now he would occasionally seek out the other denizens of the gallery to talk with if he was getting bored, something he wouldn't have done out of fear not even a full year ago – he had been completely desensitized to the horrors of the gallery, and started to view it more and more like his home.

Mary meanwhile continued to learn as much as she could, and she started to take a book with her to bed every night, and when Garry was asleep, she would stay up reading her books. Initially it was only to get better at reading, but soon she found herself naturally drawn into the worlds of the books, and found that she getting really into the stories, wanting to know what was going to happen next, and before she knew it, it was morning, and Garry was waking up. She still remembered the first time it happened clearly…

"Mary?" Garry yawned, blinking a few times looking down at the girl lying by his side, "You're still reading?" He asked in surprise, unable to control his yawn.

Mary blushed as Garry broke her out of her trace she was in from reading the book, and she looked across the room where Garry set up a clock, and saw that it was morning – had she really been reading for nearly eight hours?! She chuckled nervously as she looked back to Garry, "Uh, I lost track of time."

"Mary…" He muttered disapprovingly, "You know it's not good for you to do that, you'll be fatigued during the day." He pointed out to her. With any real person, Garry would have a valid point, but Mary was anything but normal.

"Well, I can't feel anything," She pointed out to him, "And I don't really need to sleep either." She could see that he hadn't actually considered that, and it caught him off guard as he thought about it.

He was silent for a few more seconds, and then finally he spoke, "You don't like to flaunt that kind of stuff, so it leaves my mind occasionally."

She smiled, any time he forgot that she was a painting and believe her to be a real human was a victory in her book. "Thank you very much!"

He shrugged, getting to the edge of the bed where he sat, wiping his eyes and stifling a few more yawns, "So are you going to keep reading into the night now?" He asked after he yawned yet again.

"Occasionally." She decided, "Only if the book is really good."

Ever since that day, Mary had limited the amount she read at night, sine no matter the book she picked up – whether it was a non-fiction account of a real person, a fictional novel, or a book explaining concepts of sciences and math – she would always get heavily invested, and if she didn't stop herself, she would read until the crack of dawn, or what they assumed was dawn anyway, since the only indicator of it being the morning was the clocks that they set up around the place.

Then came the one day Mary had truly been dreading. The day when Garry had crossed his arms as he looked at her, and explained that she was nearly as good as he was when it came to reading and writing now, and she could distinctly recall how impressed he had been. While he was happy, she felt more sad than anything, since that meant that he figured he was done teaching her.

"Mary, there's really nothing much more I can teach you at this point about this." He explained during a lesson that took place perhaps a month ago in the library. They were seated across from each other, with a pile of books scattered on the table, "You're just about as good as me when it comes to reading, and your handwriting and spelling are both excellent."

"You can do it," Mary tried to assure him; trying not to let on how desperate she was to keep the lessons going, "I want to learn more."

"In three and a half years, you went from not being able to read at all, to being able to read just as well as I can…" He shook his head, "Mary, you're an exceptionally talented individual. I've said it again, but it bears repeating – you're a prodigy when it comes to learning things, and it's a damn shame that you were stuck in here all your life."

Mary blinked at how blunt he was being, and felt a little flushed, "Do you really think I'm that good?" Even she wasn't aware that she was doing so well, she figured that Garry was just praising her because he knew that it motivated her.

"Mary, it takes people over ten years to develop the skills that you have gotten in three. Yes, I honestly mean it." He explained, looking genuinely surprised that she'd even ask such a thing.

"I see," She mumbled, feeling very sad, "Does that mean you're done teaching me?"

"It depends on what you want to do now," He admitted, "As far as reading and writing goes, I don't think there's much more I can do to help you there, and as for math, you are doing exceptionally well in algebra, but I'll admit that I've never done calculus, or even pre-calculus before, since it wasn't required for my major, so I can't necessarily teach you more in that either."

Mary frowned, "But I like doing this with you…"

"The only thing I can continue teaching you is drawing, since you still have a long way to go in that, and I'm actually certified to teach that… As far as reading goes, I was thinking we could do a sort of book club thing I guess, where we pick out a book to read and then talk about it afterwards, pointing out any symbolism or noteworthy things we picked up out of the stories." He shrugged, "I remember doing that in high school, and I thought it was interesting."

Mary smiled, "That sounds like a lot of fun!" She smiled at him, glad that he was thinking up new things for the two of them to do.

"And as far as math goes, this library does have some books on calculus, so I was wondering if you would be interested in learning it alongside me, since this is new territory even for me." He explained, reaching forward from his chair to the table, where Mary noticed that he picked out a pre-calculus book to use.

"So we'll both be students?" Mary asked in surprise, amazed that he would be willing to learn alongside her.

"When it comes to math, yes we will be." He confirmed for her, and grinned when he saw her wide smile, "Try not to be too eager – in a month you're going to surpass me, and then in a year you'll be the one teaching me! I suck at math, but I look forward to working with you on this."

"It'll be fun!" She exclaimed, excited by the change in the status quo. She was also very happy that Garry didn't seem to be resentful to acknowledge that she was far superior to him when it came to her mathematical skills.

"Well, that's all I've really got to say for now," He shrugged, leaning back into his seat, "You're an exceptional student, and I look forward to seeing you continue to hone your skills."

Since that day, they picked out a book every week to read – and Mary had learned that she shouldn't read it at night, because that boost her WAY ahead of Garry in the material. So now, every morning after breakfast, the duo would go into the library and read the book for a few hours, before moving onto the math lessons that they both started to take together, and that would lead up to lunch. After lunch, Garry would continue to teach Mary to draw, and the schedule would repeat itself the next day.

Like before, they had two break days, which Garry designated to be every Saturday and Sunday, with Saturday being Garry's day, and Sunday was Mary's day. On the first day, they'd do what Garry preferred to do, and on the second, they'd do what Mary wanted to do. Garry's idea of a day off didn't really change over the years, but Mary's clearly started to change the more she matured – instead of playing in the black room all day, she opted to read just as Garry did, since she was getting so invested in all the books she wasn't able to read even four years ago.

Of course, Garry didn't necessarily mind this change in her behavior, but it did lead to a funny situation when he, of all people, decided that they would play in the black room for once during his day, much to Mary's surprise. His reasoning, as far as she could tell, was that he was going a little stir crazy just being in the library all day, so he needed a change of pace. Since then, Mary had decided to play in the black room or around the gallery on her day off occasionally, and not just stay cooped up in the library.

Whenever she read though, her desire to leave the gallery grew, and while the thought that she COULD leave the gallery whenever she wanted did pop up more than once, she just couldn't do it, since the desire to leave wasn't able to match her growing love for Garry. Even though he rejected her, she still found herself longing to be with him in a romantic sense. She knew it was a pointless pursuit, but her heart – at least what she thought was her heart – wouldn't let her love go, so she just kept it well hidden.

Now, at the present time, she was painting in the storage room that they generally held their art lessons, with Garry sitting beside her giving her advice and just generally telling her what she was doing correctly, and he would occasionally tell her if something wasn't working. Most of the time though, he was silent, allowing Mary to get into a groove when she started to paint, entering her own world and painting exactly what she saw.

Mary sat in the middle of the room, with all of the supplies in the room shoved aside expect for a small table in front of her and her canvas, the table had a vase on it with the things she had to draw, and her eyes continued to dart between her drawing, and the thing she was painting. Garry sat on a chair right beside her, watching her the entire time.

"You've really improved." Garry nodded appraisingly as she added the finishing touches of her latest painting.

She blinked a few times, her mind returning to the world, and she looked at her painting. Garry decided to do something a bit different, and had gotten several fake roses of multiple colors, and set them up in a vase in front of her, and then he told her to paint what she saw through a little cutout of a cardboard square that he set up in front of her. It was an odd request, but she did as he asked, and in the end, it looked far better than she could have imagined. There were blues, yellows, reds, purples, and greens all over her canvas, and it looked absolutely beautiful.

She looked over to her side and smiled at him, "Thank you." Even as matured as she was, she still absolutely loved it whenever Garry would complement her and her work. Some things never changed, she supposed.

"I'm only saying what's true," He assured her, giving her head a pat.

She rolled her eyes as he patted her head, but didn't knock his hand away, since she didn't want to be rude. So she instead decided to ask, "What now?"

"I was thinking we could try some portrait drawings." He answered, bringing back his hand, and tapping his chin in thought, "Yeah… I think that sounds excellent!"

"Again?" Mary groaned, "I thought we did that already!"

"We did, but it's still something you can vastly improve on! From seeing how well you did the picture of the roses, I think it might be a good time to revisit this!" He stood up and walked over to a mirror that was stored against the wall, and pulled the large mirror in front of Mary, gently moving aside the box with the roses atop of it. When the mirror was in front of Mary, he returned to his seat beside her.

"So you just want me to improve it then?" She asked, looking over to him. She knew that she wasn't very good at portrait drawings – she knew she got the proportions wrong, and she just found drawing the human face to be very difficult.

He nodded, "Exactly! Start drawing when you're reading, and like always, I'll be right here to help you out if you need it." He went back to his seat to watch her begin to work.

She shrugged – he was her teacher after all, and he did know best when it came to this, so she did as he asked, and she set aside her canvas in favor of a sketchbook and a pencil, and started to sketch herself. She had already done this though! Was doing it again worthwhile? Would it really improve her skills? She knew the answer – yes, it would. It only really felt like she was altering her image though, and not improving her skill as an artist.

Wait…

She stopped drawing.

"Mary?" He touched her shoulder, "Are you all right?"

"F – Fine!" She stated, stuttering that out. _How could I be so stupid? I should have done that from the beginning! _She felt her hand shaking from her excitement at the mere thought, but she also felt a bit of fear, _but what if I screw up and do something that can't be reversed?_

"Mary… You're concerning me." Garry mumbled, reaching out and gently taking hold of her wrist, "You're shaking."

"It's just a thought," She mumbled. Every painting – every model and drawing in the gallery could be altered, she said so herself when she was explaining things to Garry. So that meant…

… It was possible to change her painting, and by extension, herself.

What would it be like to be an adult? To be taller? To have Garry look at her instead of Red whenever the two of them were in the room? Mary knew that Garry was fond of her, but he was far too much of a gentleman to do anything with her – she occasionally saw him looking at her sadly, thinking of something… This could potentially help both of them in the long run – they could admit their love to one another! The only problem was that it would take her a LONG time to develop her skills enough to the point where she would feel comfortable with altering her painting… years even.

"Mary!"

"What?" She snapped out of her thoughts, and turned to look at Garry, who was giving her a very concerned look. She blinked a few times, and noticed that he was holding her wrist, "What are you doing?"

"What's wrong?" He asked instead, releasing her wrist, "You just started shaking, and then you went really still and wouldn't respond to anything I said."

"Nothing's wrong!" She smiled at him, her teeth shining, "I just had an amazing idea!" Of course, that was a bit of an understatement. She was so thrilled with the idea that she was almost shaking with excitement.

"And what's that?" He asked, feeling relieved that Mary was returning back to her usual self, though she seemed a bit more giddy than usual.

"I can't tell you now, it'll be a surprise!" She giggled, again making him raise his eyebrows.

"I can't say I'm too fond of surprises." He muttered.

"You'll like this one a lot, trust me!" She looked him in the eye, knowing that doing that would assure him that she was being very serious when it came to this. He finally he relented, with a curt nod.

He sighed, "Ok, I guess I'll trust you on this." She gave him another warm smile, and then turned to her portrait drawing, seemingly more determined than ever. He watched her a little bit, and after giving her a few bits of advice here and there, stayed silent and allowed the girl to work.

He found his thoughts wandering directly to the little girl in front of him – or rather, the teenager trapped in the body of a child. He was true to his word, and he did treat her better, though he did occasionally do some things that he would only do with a child – like patting her head, he really ought to not have done that, but it just felt appropriate at the time. She seemed to be a lot more receptive whenever he treated her as an adult as well, and would work harder if he made sure to treat her more as an equal than as a child.

In truth, he was feeling kind of disturbed. He wasn't into children – he would NEVER be into that – but he found himself growing a… fondness? For Mary, that concerned him greatly. Whenever she acting her physical age, he would feel fine, but whenever the girl started acting more as the adult she was becoming, he felt an… attraction, he supposed. Mentally she was close to seventeen or eighteen, and that was reflected in the way she talked and acted. It honestly made him resent the fact that she was stuck in the body of a child, and he found himself looking at her sadly, feeling so sorry for her, since she was stuck in that body with no way out, and he lamented the fact that there could never be anything between them.

He decided not to think about such things for now, and pushed the thoughts aside, trying to focus on the portrait drawing that Mary was doing, and he nodded approvingly, "That's looking far better than before, Mary."

She nodded, looking very determined, and she continued to work even as she talked, never taking her eyes away from her sketchbook or mirror. "Yeah, I'm trying really hard!"

"That's good to hear." He smiled, noticing how dedicated she was to drawing. He couldn't honestly recall the last time she seemed this into drawing, and it was starting to make him wonder…

"It'll all be worth it in the end!" She declared.

"What does that mean?" He wondered, giving her an odd stare. So she was working harder for some reason, but what could it be? She said she had a surprise in store for him, so it must have been related to that, but he still had no idea what she was planning.

She stopped her drawing, and turned to look at him, "It's a secret, but I want to be able to do a really photorealistic drawing of myself with paint!"

"That will take a while," He admitted, "A really long time, depending on how realistic you want to make it."

"I don't care; teach me how to do it, please!" She clapped both of her hands together, and actually bowed her head down, as if she was begging him. He chuckled a bit, shaking his head.

"Huh, why are you so eager to learn this?" He felt primarily confused – she had never been this determined to learn a specific thing before.

"It's a secret." She repeated yet again, and Garry knew that he wouldn't be getting anything more than that out of her, no matter how hard he were to try.

Letting out a sigh, he shrugged, "I guess I have no issues with you learning this. We have all the time in the world anyway."

Her beaming smile caused him to smile right back at her, "Thank you!" She cheered, wrapping her arms around him, before going back to her portrait, lightly sketching some lines in to improve the art work even more than before. Like earlier, he stayed silent as he watched her work.

After that, the two went to eat dinner, and then go to bed soon after. Garry however, wasn't able to get to sleep, his thoughts returning to his feelings towards Mary, and he grimaced, rolling over towards the wall, causing Mary to wake up, who for once decided not to read into the night, since she had stated that she wanted the next day to start 'as soon as possible'.

"Garry…?" She mumbled, blinking her eyes a few times, and she reached for her glasses, "Is it morning…?"

"Oh, sorry." He mumbled, realizing that she always snuggled into his side, and when he moved he must have displaced her, which caused her to wake up.

"What's wrong?" She mumbled, wiping her eyes and putting on her glasses. She then looked over to him, to see that he was rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"Nothing." He assured her, turning back around, and allowing the girl to practically burrow back into his side again, "Just go to sleep, it's really late."

"Are you sure nothing's wrong?" She asked as she took her glasses off again and set them back on the nightstand next to their bed.

"Nothing that can be fixed, anyway." He mumbled so quietly that Mary only caught a few of the words here and there.

Mary frowned, not fully understanding what he said, so she decided to ask, "What?"

"Oh, it's nothing." He put on a fake smile to try and put her at ease, "Just go to sleep, I won't bring it up again, so don't worry about it!"

Mary watched as Garry leaned his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes, fitfully try to get to sleep, and she wondered what that was about… Unable to think of anything, she placed her head back down on the pillow as she wrapped her arms around Garry and snuggled into his side, and her mind worried over thoughts of what could be bothering Garry.

The next day, they acted like nothing ever happened that night.

XxXxXxX

Notes:

I'd like to congratulate the reviewer who hit the nail right on the head as to what was going to happen involving Mary. Good work. I'll also congratulate everyone else who figured it out as well. I don't know how obvious I made it, or if it was just a good guess on your end, but ever since the first chapter, I tried my damn best to show how EVERYTHING in the world could be altered in any way. The Sun, the bed, Mary's glasses, and a handful of other examples.

Thanks for reading! See you next chapter!


	8. Growing Up

Growing Up

Six years – it had been six long years since Garry had decided to stay with her. Well, it was closer to six and a half years, but that was a minor detail. For the past six years, Mary had slowly accumulated knowledge like a sponge, and it was all thanks to Garry. He taught her things she never even knew about, and she could read any book she wanted, solve any math equation, write in near perfect handwriting, and now, today, it seemed that she was reaching the limits of what Garry could teach her as an artist.

He sat beside her, wearing his favorite jacket and pants. While they weren't the exact same ones as all those years ago (they had gotten far too worn), they were a pretty close replica of them that they decided to make. He had his hair combed out of his face, and he was sitting on a chair beside Mary in the same storage room they always went to when Mary had her art lessons. He simply watched Mary patiently, not saying a single thing.

Mary was wearing a blouse and a knee-length skirt, and her hair was tied back into a ponytail, since Red had recommended it to her. In addition to that, Red had taught her all about make-up and such, something Garry had completely left out when he was explaining things to her, so Red had taken her aside one day and told her all about it. Now she had a bit of make-up on, though it was only a subtle amount – enough to make her blue eyes more prominent behind her glasses and a little bit of red on her lips as well.

She reached forward with her paint brush, and added a little bit more detail to the painting she had been working on for quite a few days now, and finally she set it down, looking at the canvas with a critical eye, she turned to Garry. "How is it?" She asked.

He was silently as he placed his hand on his chin and his eyes scanned the artwork on display. Mary was glad that she couldn't feel for once, since she had read in books about how people seem to get a feeling of butterflies or a lump in their throat and stomach when they were nervous. She couldn't imagine that it felt very good, especially in a moment like this, when she was merely so nervous emotionally.

"It looks excellent." He finally stated, "It's amazing – I can't spot a single flaw." He looked up and down a few more times, and then shook his head, smiling at Mary, "I'd go so far as to say that it's flawless."

"There's not anything wrong at all?" She asked, feeling relief in her mind. She couldn't help but let out a sigh, since the tension in the room was now relieved.

"No. It's astonishing how real she looks; I honestly wouldn't be able to tell a difference at all between her and a picture of a real person." He admitted, turning his eyes back to the painting. Mary smiled widely – she had done it! The painting was of an older woman in her early twenties, sitting down on a chair, looking worriedly off to the side. Mary had insisted that she paint a full-body picture, and she wanted it to be of an older woman.

"What next then?" She asked, looking to Garry. Garry shrugged his shoulders, looked back in her direction, and chuckled.

"Honestly, Mary, there's not much I can teach you now. You know all the fundamentals perfectly, and you know almost everything else I can think of. All I can say is to practice more and more, and you'll always improve." He explained to her, "We can try some other style of art if you'd like, but as far as portrait and depictions of real people go, you've surpassed even me."

She smiled, "Sort of like how I surpassed you in math?" Instead of feeling sad that she couldn't learn from Garry about this anymore, she felt excited – very excited! It meant that her plans that she had for years could finally come to fruition.

He chuckled, "Exactly." It was true, as per Garry's prediction, Mary had started to help him when it came to calculus, since he found it so difficult to do, and she just naturally seem to understand math more than any other person he knew. While it was a little humiliating at first, Mary seemed to have picked up on that, and acted very professionally, not laughing at him or anything, and she did her best to make sure he understood. When he realized that she was trying not to make him feel bad, he felt foolish for even thinking such a thing, and stopped being so sore about it.

Their reading club had been going very well too, and they enjoyed long discussions about the books they read. While initially they started on high-school level books like 'Of Mice and Men' and 'The Old Man and the Sea' (the latter of which Mary thought was the most boring book in the universe), they had quickly moved on to much more lengthy novels, and she even started to read the Song of Ice and Fire series that he read when he first entered the painting, and she enjoyed them immensely.

"I'm really happy." Mary muttered, smiling as she recalled all her memories of the past six years, "Garry, I don't know if I ever told you this, but thank you so much for staying in here with me all this time."

"You're welcome." He smiled warmly at her, and he stood up from his seat, stretching his legs and arms. She heard an audible crack, and Garry let out a satisfied sigh.

"You know… you could have left all this time, right?" She rarely ever talked to him about this, and it only felt right to bring it up, and give him the option to leave if he so desired, after everything he did for her.

He frowned and shook his head, "Mary, you know I'm not going to leave you."

She couldn't help but giggle at that reply. She was so very happy that he wouldn't leave, because she would become so very lonely without him around. "Yeah, I guess not." She mumbled.

"What do you want to do now?" He asked, looking around the storage room, "Maybe there's something else you want to learn to do? I don't know why you were so intent on being able to do photorealistic portrait drawings, but…"

"Actually I had a plan for when this day came," She admitted, interrupting his train of thought, "For when I got good enough to paint something this amazing." She noticed him giving her an odd look.

"What's your plan?" He asked, crossing his arms as he looked down at the sitting girl. He should have known that she wouldn't say a word, since she brought a finger up to her mouth.

"It's a secret!" She sang happily, getting up from her seat.

"The very same secret you've been keeping from me all this time? You know that has been driving me crazy for years!" He laughed, "I'm starting to think that you don't actually have a secret after all."

"Think whatever you want," She walked over to him and then pointed to her picture, "But are you absolutely, positively, super-duper sure that you can't think of anything else in this picture that can be improved?"

"Yes," He nodded, "I'm absolutely, positively, super-duper sure that you've made that the best picture you could. I could nit-pick a few needless things, but really, there's nothing you could do to improve it in my eyes."

"Good. Then I need to do something!" She spun around and went over to the door. She was so giddy that she realized that her hand was shaking when she placed it on the doorknob. She just couldn't believe that this day finally came!

"What do you need to do?" He eyed her suspiciously.

"Whatever you do, DO NOT go into my room, ok? You can go anywhere else, but until I come out, you are NOT allowed in my room!" She turned to look at him, giving him her most serious look, which was somewhat diminished by how happy she was.

Garry got the point, but he was still confused, "Really, Mary, what's this about?" He crossed his arms, and tilted his head ever so slightly to the side.

"I promise you it's nothing bad at all." She assured him, "But I need you to promise me, ok? Don't come in my room until I say so!"

He sighed, "I suppose I can do that for you, but you're killing me with not letting me know." He uncrossed his arms, and shrugged.

"I know, I know!" She laughed, "I'm sorry, but it'll be worth it, I promise you!"

Garry nodded, "I'll do as you ask of me then, I'm not going to go in your room." He couldn't help but smile at the look of happiness that crossed Mary's face when he said that, but he quickly braced himself when he noticed that the girl darted across the room back towards him.

"Thank you!" She jumped up and wrapped her arms around him in a hug, "I'll see you soon, and thank you so much again!"

"Yeah, see you soon." He replied, and watched her as she let go of him and darted out of the room as quickly as her little feet could possibly take her. Garry blinked a few times at the speed in which she left, and shook his head, "Huh, she's pretty eager to leave." He turned to look at her painting, and simply stared for a few seconds, "She really has improved. In another two years, there will be nothing else I can teach her…" With a sigh, he gently took Mary's painting, and put it away, and started to pack up the supplies in the room.

Mary meanwhile darted down the hall to the doll room as quickly as she could, "Chucky!" She yelled the moment she slammed the door open. All the dolls in the room darted their red eyes towards her in surprise.

The doll wearing the red dress looked up, "What is it?" She asked.

"I'm going to need your help with something very important!" She walked over to her as quickly as she could, and she picked her up.

"Oh? Can we help too?" Several of the other dolls perked up, watching Mary with curiosity.

"Sorry," Mary answered, "But I don't want too many people seeing what I'm doing. It's going to be a surprise."

There was a collective groan of disappointment at her first statement, and then excited whispering from the second, with all the dolls looking at each other eagerly, and chatting away, wondering what the surprise could possibly be. Chucky chuckled at her family's antics, and looked up to the girl holding her, "Where to?"

"First I need to go find Red too!" Mary answered, darting out of the doll room with the doll in tow, "Do you know where she is?"

"Probably chatting with her annoying sisters." Chucky replied, glad that Mary had such a good grip on her body, otherwise she'd go flying away with how fast Mary was darting through the gallery. Mary nodded, and ran down another long set of hallways until she was in the main exhibit hall of the gallery, where she ran to three paintings of women. In each portrait was a beautiful woman wearing one of the primary colors, blue, yellow, and of course, red.

Red was leaning a little out of her painting, her head resting in her palm and looking incredibly bored as her two sisters talked about the most inane things. "Red!" Mary called as she came over.

"Oh thank god…" Red muttered, seeing a distraction coming. She was about to smile, but then her sisters started to speak, and she just rolled her eyes.

"It's Mary!" The woman in blue cried, "How are you dear?"

"Yes, how are you?" The woman in yellow repeated the question to her.

"I'm doing fine!" She politely waved to the both of them, before turning to Red, "Can you come with me? I'm going to do something really important, and I want you to be there with me!" Both Blue and Yellow perked up at that, but stayed silent for now, allowing Red time to speak.

"Oh? What could this be?" Red wondered aloud, tapping her chin, silently thankful that her sisters had shut up for a moment.

"It's a secret!" Mary replied, "I'll tell you when you come with me!"

"I _LOVE _secrets!" The woman in yellow practically yelled, "Tell me! I promise I won't tell anyone else!" Red glared over at Yellow, and was about to speak to Mary again when Blue suddenly started to yell.

"No, tell me, I won't let anyone else know!" The lady in blue cried. The yellow and blue portraits glared at each other, and in short order, the two started to get into a very loud and obnoxious shouting match, causing Mary to grimace and look away, and Chucky reached up and covered her ears to try and block out the sound.

"They've been like this all day…" Red grumbled as she stepped out of her painting, "I'm really glad you came along, I don't think I could stand this for one more second." She sent her sisters a another glare, but felt satisfied that they were too busy with each other that they didn't notice her slowly leading Mary and Chucky away from the commotion.

"I can see why." Chucky mumbled, "I think my ears are going to bleed."

"But you can't bleed." Mary pointed out, "Nor do you have ears."

"It's a figure of speech." Chucky sighed, "Can we get out of here though? Before they notice that we're leaving while they're busy yelling at each other?"

"Sure," Mary nodded, "Follow me!" Mary, Red, and Chucky went through the gallery, and then down the stairs to the black room, and they followed the path to Mary's house.

Over the years, Mary had added more and more improvements to the building as she learned to draw, and now it actually looked like a real house. The inside was even better – instead of black, the floor was carpeted and there was an actual lamp on the ceiling lighting things up, and her room was even better. Her bed looked like an actual bed tucked in the corner, and there were two desks, one filled to the brim with school supplies and textbooks, and the other had all sorts of books stacked on it. There was also two dressers, one for her, and one for Garry. In addition, like the other room, the floor was carpeted and there were several lights – two lamps at the desks, and a light overhead that lit up the room nicely.

"So what do you need us to do in here?" Red asked, looking around. She was quite impressed with how much Mary fixed the place up. Undoubtedly it was with Garry helping her, but still, she was happy for her for making her room look so nice.

Mary put Chucky down on the bed, and walked over to her painting. She let out a breath, and then turned around to the two other people in the room, "Ok… This might sound crazy to you two, but… Well, you know how I'm a painting, right?"

"I'm more than aware of that, Mary." Red replied. She was a painting too after all, though she was curious to know where Mary was taking this.

"How couldn't I know?" Chucky mumbled, "I do think you're crazy if you honestly thought we didn't know that."

"No, that's not the crazy part!" Mary growled, glaring at Chucky, "I'm getting to that in a little bit!"

"Fine, fine, I'll let you finish talking." Chucky muttered, crossing her arms and simply watching Mary.

Mary smiled, "Thank you." She then looked nervously between the two of them, whatever momentum she built up to try and tell them about her plans had quickly depleted with that earlier conversation.

"So what's crazy?" Red asked, trying to coax Mary into letting them know. It seemed to work, since Mary shook her head, and looked at them seriously.

"Ok, you know how you can alter any picture in this gallery?" Mary asked, biting her bottom lip.

"Oh, I see." Red mumbled, her eyes lighting up and a smile crossing her face, "That IS crazy, but the sort of crazy I like. Are you sure you want to do it though? If you mess up, it will be really hard to reverse." Chucky meanwhile was looking between the two of them, utterly confused.

"Hold on – what's the plan?" She yelled, getting between the two of them before they continued talking about whatever.

"Really?" Red asked, "You didn't figure it out? I knew you were slow, but honestly…"

"I want to make myself older." Mary explained, getting right to the point, and also getting between Red and Chucky before they could start fighting. "I want to do it because Garry refuses to do anything with me since I'm physically young, so I decided to try and get really, REALLY good at painting, and then I'll try to alter myself through the painting of me."

"Oh," Chucky muttered, "Ok, yeah, you are crazy." Chucky gave her a very concerned look, "Are you sure about this?"

Mary rolled her eyes, "Look, I practiced a lot! Ok? I know what I'm doing!" She didn't need these two to add on to her self-doubts and concerns!

"What do you need us here for?" Red asked, crossing her arms, and walking up to the painting of Mary, "If you can paint so well, surely you don't need us here?"

"I want you here for support and guidance, mostly." Mary admitted as she, along with Red's help, gently pulled down the frame her painting hung in from the wall, and the two settled it down on the floor, "I'm going to do this one way or another, with or without you guys."

"Why don't you get Garry to come here?" Chucky wondered, "You know he'll help you with absolutely anything."

"I know, but I want this to be a surprise. I told him not to come in here, and I trust that he won't." Mary explained to them, "So will you help me?" She looked up from the painting at the two of them. Given how nervous she was, and the pleading expression on her face, it was quite an effective way to keep both of them there, not that either of them needed the added incentive of staying though.

Chucky shrugged from her position on the bed, "Sure, why not? This can be really fun!"

Red smiled, "Of course I will. This will be the most exciting thing that has happened here in years." She went over to sit down next to Mary, "Can you imagine how everyone will react?"

"Thank you!" Mary smiled at the both of them, "So…" She looked down at the painting of her – and she willed her image to appear there, which wasn't that difficult to do, since it was her painting after all. She looked down at the painting of herself, and reached forth to touch it, feeling very apprehensive all the sudden.

"Where are you going to start?" Red asked, settling down on the floor beside Mary. Chucky also jumped down from the bed to sit by Red, so she could also get a good view of the painting.

"I don't know," Mary muttered, "I just want to make an older version of me, that's all. I don't want to make a completely different person, so I'm wondering how I should start."

"Well, you've read those books on puberty; I remember teaching you that stuff." Red muttered, and a fond smile crossed her face, "Those were some pretty fun times."

"Right, I also read enough books about growing up too," Mary admitted, "But… I don't know where to start on myself! There are so many factors to take into consideration…"

"Make yourself taller!" Chucky exclaimed.

"Well, that's obvious," Mary mumbled with a roll of her eyes.

"Well before we begin to paint, first we need to determine how old you want to become." Red pointed out, "If we go by the amount of time that you and Garry have been in here, then that would be six and a half years, so you'd be fifteen or sixteen then."

"If we go by that logic, then we'd have to assume that Garry is thirty-one or thirty-two," Mary replied, "No. Plus, he even said that I'm beyond a high school age, so I was thinking of settling at twenty or twenty-one."

"Are you sure, Mary?" Red asked, getting serious, "I know you love Garry – oh don't give me that look, I know it's true – but are you sure you want to age yourself up that drastically?" She crossed her arms, giving Mary her most stern look. Mary frowned, and looked down, internally debating it for a few minutes, before she finally looked back up.

"I'm sure." Mary answered with a nod, still blushing from Red saying that she l – loved Garry aloud, "I've lived as a nine year old for over a century, I think it's ok if I grow up now."

Red nodded, "I suppose that makes sense, I just want you to be very sure."

"Alright, so we'll make her old enough to drink!" Chucky exclaimed, "That sounds perfect!"

Mary nodded, "Old enough to drink, so twenty-one it is then."

"Fair enough, so you're about four and a half feet tall right now, right?" Red asked, and when Mary nodded, she continued, "So I think the average height of a woman is like… five…"

"Five foot four," Mary answered for her, "But I'm a little above the average height of a girl my age, so I was thinking of going to five foot six or so."

Red grinned at how knowledgeable Mary was regarding this, "You've been reading up on this recently." She knew she was right the moment Mary blushed, and looked away.

"I've been planning this for a long time." Mary muttered, still looking away, even though it was pointless, since Red could obviously see her blush.

"Alright, so let's just write these down on a paper somewhere…" Red mumbled, looking around and going to the desk with all the art supplies on it, where she grabbed a pencil and a notebook. She went back over next to Mary, "Ok, so… Five foot six and twenty-one years old..." She nodded as she wrote those, "We have your intended height and age down, now what?"

"I read all about anatomy," Mary explained, "But… Well… I don't know how 'big' to be." She looked over to them, her face still red, "I mean, I know the average numbers, but… well… what do you two think?"

Chucky laughed in her high pitch voice, "You're trying to get Garry's attention, right? He's a guy! Just draw an hourglass and BAM you're done!"

"That's cute," Red shook her head at Chucky, "But this is actually my field of expertise, so don't listen to that doll." She looked over to Mary, "Just listen to me."

"Oh really," Chucky replied dryly, "Then please, oh wise one, share you knowledge with the rest of us."

"Oh, I will." Red grinned, "Now Mary, listen closely, you hear?" Mary nodded eagerly. "Asking how big you ought to be is not the right way to think. Having giant breasts is not always the best thing it doesn't feel – well, I know you can't feel, but just stick with me here - great at all to have so much weight on your chest, as you get older it will lead to you getting back pains. Plus, there's plenty of ways small chested girls can make them look bigger if that is really your thing."

Mary nodded along, "I see, I see." She was clearly completely absorbed in everything that Red was saying. Even Chucky was quiet as Red continued to talk.

"The same applies to the rest of your measurements – try not to get too big because you think that is what guys like. Trust me Mary, Garry is a gentleman, and I know for a fact that he isn't one of those people who drool at the sight of any woman. You don't have to worry about him leaving you if you're not – god forbid – beautiful enough."

"But all those magazines I read –"

"That was your first problem." Red shook her finger, "Reading that trash and looking at those pictures will do you no good. I've heard talk that all the images are fake anyway, and Garry even told me about something called… Um, photo… shop? Yeah, that's it, Photoshop, where they can actually change the image to make the girls look the way they do in those pictures."

"I see…" Mary muttered. Reading those magazines did make her feel dumb, especially with some of the really stupid topics of the stories in them, but it had been for research after all.

"Anyway, my point is, just make yourself well proportioned, and don't go overblown with it." Red finished her explanation. She actually received some applause from Chucky.

Chucky clapped, "Wow, I should give you more credit, Red!"

"You should." Red smiled smugly at the doll, and she reached up and combed aside some stray strands of hair.

"Oh, right, that's why I don't." Chucky mumbled. She instead focused her attention onto the painting, and then towards Mary, who was still staring intently down at it.

"Alright, I'm going to start now…" Mary muttered, she went up to the art supplies desk, and she opened up a drawer and pulled out all sorts of supplies – brushes, and all the right colors for the painting in question. It was clear that she wasn't lying when she said that she was planning on this for a long time, since she had everything she needed. With that, she walked back over, and sat beside her painting, and picked out the brush she wanted to use first. She dipped it into the color she wanted, and slowly lowered it towards the painting.

"Stop shaking, Mary." Red muttered, seeing how jittery the girl was, "Just calm down, and do what you do best."

"Yeah, you can do it!" Chucky cheered her on.

Mary let out a breath, and nodded, "Thanks guys!" With that, her hand stopped shaking, and she began to alter her portrait. For the first time in perhaps centuries, she could feel – it was a weird tingly sensation on the spots she was painting over, and soon she felt her body begin to change.

XxXxXxX

Garry woke up in the library yet again, blinking his eyes groggily as he sat up and noticed that there was a book on his chest. He didn't know what the hell Mary was up to, but she had been locked in her room for over two days now, and he had seen no sign of her. He felt incredibly worried, but whenever he knocked on the door to her room, he heard RED of all people assuring him that it was all right, and that it was just a really long process.

_What was a long process? _He wondered more than once during those two days.

Shaking his head, he reached up and put the book he had been reading until late last night on the table, and he looked around to see if Mary, Red, or at this point, even Chucky were around, but there was no luck. He was alone in there yet again. He fell back down into the chair and closed his eyes, feeling odd… It had been so long that he kind of forgot what it was like to be alone, he had never gone more than half a day without seeing and talking to somehow, so it was… weird, to be alone.

"Well, I might as well go eat breakfast." He mumbled to himself as he sat up, stretching his arms as he did so. He checked the clock on the wall that he and Mary had set up in there, and noticed that it was a little pass ten, "Sheesh, I sure slept in…" Not wanting to waste another second of the day, he quickly stood up and wandered down the hall towards the painting he always visited when he was hungry. Once there, he reached in and grabbed some food, some eggs, toast, and a bit of ham. It wasn't much, but it was more than enough to get him started for the day.

"Hello, Garry." He'd been in that gallery for so long that he no longer ever jumped when unexpected voices popped up. Instead, he looked down the hall to see who it was, and he couldn't help but feel disappointed that it wasn't Mary, Red, or Chucky.

He tried not to groan, but he couldn't help but allow a grimace to cross his face at the sight of the woman walking towards him. "Hello, Yellow." He sighed.

"That looks delicious, mind if I have some?" She asked, taking a seat next to him and leaning into him, pressing her chest into his arm. While Red was usually able to respect his personal space and accepted the fact that he didn't care for her in _that _way, Yellow wasn't able to get the hint at all. The woman, if she caught Garry alone, would flirt endlessly with him, and it was just tiring and a bit annoying.

"Um, sure…" He mumbled, scooting over and putting the plate in her direction, hoping that she would just accept a few bits and then leave. It was a fruitless effort though, since she scooted over the distance he made between them, and again pressed herself into him.

"Oh please, Garry, can you feed me yourself?" Garry quickly started to move his face further away from hers as she came closer and closer.

_Oh brother… _Garry cried in his mind, "Yellow, I don't think that would be very appropriate." Thankfully, she leaned away from him again, and he let out a sigh.

The yellow eyed woman pouted, "But Garry!" She crossed her arms and looked at him with an over-exaggerated face of hurt.

"I'm sorry." He replied, taking another bite of his breakfast.

"Come on Garry, stop being so boring." She wrapped her hands around his arm so he wouldn't be able to scoot away now, and she actually started to rub her cheek against the length of his arm, "You're the only man for me."

"Weren't you talking about me feeding you?" He asked her in exasperation, "What does that have to do with me being the only man for you?"

Yellow sighed, "Honestly Garry, it's like you are trying to make me believe that you're gay." She let go and shook her head sadly, "It's a shame – you're far too good looking to be gay!"

"I can assure you, that I'm most definitely not gay." Garry muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Then prove it." She smiled, leaning closer to him, and he could see that she was purposely trying to show off as much of her cleavage as possible when she did it. He closed his eyes, trying not to let them wander.

"I see what you're trying to do." Garry shook his head, breaking out of her hold and standing up, "Look, I really ought to go see what Mary's up to, all right?"

"Oh? She's doing that whole secret thing." Yellow muttered, tapping her chin, "I didn't think it would take this long, though I guess that explains where Red has been…"

"You know about it?" Garry asked in surprise, looking down at the yellow-dressed woman.

Yellow smiled, "I sure do!" She stood up, and dusted off her dress.

"Can you please tell me about it?" Garry asked, "What's it all about?"

"Hmm…" She giggled as she eyed him lustfully, "I wonder what you'll do for this information." She licked her lips, and smiled as she watched him shake his head.

He groaned, "Look, Yellow, the answer is, and will always be no." He hoped against hope that she would finally understand for now, but he knew that it was pointless. He was pleasantly surprised when she shrugged, and stopped trying to look so suggestive.

The woman sighed, "Fine, I'll stop playing for today."

"So will you please tell me what's up with Mary?" Garry asked, hoping that his good fortune would continue further.

"I know nothing about it." Yellow admitted, "Only that she came to Red holding that doll – Chucky I think she wants to be called – and took them to her room."

Garry nodded, "That's about all I know too… I hope she's ok." He looked in concern towards the direction of the black room, knowing that she was there, in her room, doing something that she didn't want him to know about."

"She's in her room, what's the worst that could happen?" Yellow muttered.

"Those are famous last words…" Garry mumbled, feeling even more uneasy now.

"Honestly, you worry too much. Just wait a while."

"I think I'll go check now, actually…" Garry replied, "Thanks for the information, and you can have the rest of my food." He practically bolted away from Yellow when he had the chance to, leaving the woman all alone with the food.

"He's just no fun at all…" She sighed, picked up the dish and putting it back through the painting, "I really envy Mary…" She looked down the way Garry went, and then shrugged, "Well, there's always tomorrow!"

Garry rushed out of that particular hall as quickly as he could to avoid being around Yellow any longer. It wasn't that he hated her, but it was just that she was so persistent even though he refused her advances every time, it was just getting annoying now. Shaking his head, he walked down the stairs to the black room, and towards his and Mary's home, and once inside, he turned the light on and knocked on the door to Mary's room. "Mary, are you done yet?" He called.

"Garry! Good timing!" Red's voice spoke up, "Just stay out there, ok?"

"O – Ok." He nodded. This was new at least, even though he still had to wait, at least they were telling him to wait there.

He heard Chucky laughing her little head off, and he vaguely heard the thing saying, "Oh come on now, why are you so nervous? It's not like you haven't seen him before!"

"Shut up Chucky." Red mumbled, "Now, let's see… Oh! This is a very pretty dress! Yes, let's go with this one! Oh, you look fantastic!" Red exclaimed, and Garry assumed that the woman had wrapped her arms around Mary, given the sound and the 'eep' that followed – except that voice didn't sound exactly like Mary, it was a bit different.

Another ten minutes passed, and Garry was getting tired, so he leaned against the wall next to the door, and began to doze off. Suddenly, he heard the door beginning to unlock, and his eyes shot open, and he looked over to see the door open up. He stood up and went to the front, "Mary! Sheesh, what were you doing, you had me -." He paused in his rant when he finally looked in. There was Red standing beside the bed, giving him a very wide smile – it almost looked like her face was going to split from how wide she was smiling, and in her hand were Mary's glasses. On the bed was Chucky, who was giggling away like a school girl, and then…

Huh, who was that woman standing in the middle of the room?

She wore a green dress that was somewhat similar to Mary's original dress, but obviously it was larger and took into account an adult's added features. It was very modest, yet it did show off just a hint of skin and cleavage. Her blonde hair cascaded down to her mid back, and she had very bright sky blue eyes that shined as they looked towards him, and she had on a subtle bit of make-up to just add to the effect. She was smiling nervously at him, though she didn't say a single word, and just stared at him.

"Uh… Huh?" He mumbled, breaking out of his daze upon looking at the woman, "What's going on?" He looked over to Red, looking for an answer.

"Oh, come on Garry!" Red exclaimed, "Piece it together! Who else was in here with us?"

"You can do it!" Chucky cheered, clapping her hands together, and giggling like mad.

"Hello, Garry." The woman in green spoke up. Her voice… It sounded vaguely familiar… Sort of like Mary's, but more mature and – oh… Hold on.

"Wait. Mary?" He spoke her name, and then noticed that behind the woman was the canvas of Mary, where there was indeed now an older woman standing where the nine-year-old painting resided before. His jaw fell down, and he again turned to look at the woman – Mary – in front of him.

"Yes, that's me." She answered, still smiling nervously towards him. Like whenever Garry analyzed a painting she drew, she felt incredibly nervous, and she had to avert her eyes as she saw them wandering her body, "How do I look?"

"A – Amazing." He muttered, almost completely speechless, "But how?"

"Anything in this world can be altered and changed." She stated, "I decided to do this because I wanted to be with you – in a relationship." She admitted her love to him, now the ball was in his court, so to speak.

"Mary…" He whispered her name, "Are you sure though? Is this really what you wanted?"

"It is." She nodded, taking a few steps towards him, "I've wanted this for nearly six years now."

"But you just skipped all of your teenage years…" He muttered, just watching her as she walked towards him. He felt so very confused… He just needed to get his head straight first, before committing to anything.

"I've lived over a hundred years as a nine-year-old. I think it's all right if I skip a decade, don't you?" She replied, as she stopped in front of him, looking up. Whereas before Garry towered before her like a giant, now he was less than a foot taller than her, and she couldn't help but smile about that face, "Now… Are you going to kiss me?"

Garry blinked a few times, realizing that this was it. He could either reject her, or accept her… It wasn't really a choice, as far as he was concerned. She was his companion for years, and he knew that he loved her. He leaned forward, seeing Mary close her eyes as he did so. Their lips touched, and while he still felt confused about all of this, there was no denying that it felt absolutely amazing. It felt as if there was a bolt of electricity that went through him as he kissed her – it felt so right. Mary seemed to be enjoying it just as much, and he noticed that there were tears forming at the edge of her eyes. "Mary?" He whispered, "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," She nodded, "I'm just so happy." She answered, and she leaned forward to kiss him yet again. He obliged her request, and kissed her yet again.

"I don't know how I feel," He bluntly told her, "But that felt good."

"It did." She smiled, up at him. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her – her smile was dazzling, and it mesmerized him the longer he looked at her.

"You felt it?" He wondered aloud the first thing to cross his mind.

"Probably not the same way you're referring to," She admitted, "But up here…" She tapped her head, "I have this emotion that feels so amazing that you're kissing me – It feels so good to kiss someone you love."

"It does." He nodded, aware of the fact that she just admitted that she loved him, even though it was fairly obvious.

"Garry, I love you, you know." She vocalized it yet again, looking up at him expectantly. She again looked nervous, but she locked her eyes onto his own, and he couldn't break away the contact.

"I've known for a while, in fact." He answered, "I've been so conflicted about this for years. The fact that you were a child physically made me wary about any sort of relationship with you… The fact that you now look like this, and I can return my emotions is… exhilarating."

"If we were in the real world, would you have waited for me to come of age?" She couldn't help but ask, curiously looking up at him.

"Yeah, I probably would have." He admitted, "Though I don't know if you'd have wanted to have a thirty-three year old guy be your boyfriend when you were only eighteen."

She giggled, "If it's you, then I would have been fine with it."

"Well, it looks like we don't need to worry about a huge age gap anymore." He noted, "And you're sure that you're fine with me?" He couldn't help but ask yet again. He knew that it was a huge decision on her end, and he just wanted her to be absolutely certain.

"I already said that it's fine." She smiled to him, "Garry, I love you." She repeated it yet again, and looked at him with the same expectant eyes as earlier.

He smiled right back at her, and knew that this was it. He had found the woman he always wanted to be with, so he repeated her words back to her with confidence, "Mary, I love you too." He then hugged her tightly to himself, and initiated the next kiss to prove his point.

As the two embraced each other and kissed once more Red looked over to Chucky, and motioned her head towards the door. Chucky nodded, and the two walked out of the room, Red putting down Mary's glasses on the desk before leaving, and she closed the door behind herself and Chucky.

"Well, I think that turned out well." Chucky replied, looking up at the much taller person next to her. Red reached down, and picked up the doll, though she looked melancholic.

"Yeah, it did." Red let out a sigh, looking aside.

"What's wrong?" Chucky asked, looking at Red, "I'd say things turned out well, all things considered!"

"I guess I'm just a little sad that little Mary's all grown up now." Red mumbled, "I won't have a cute little girl coming to ask me for favors anymore!"

Chucky rolled his eyes, "Oh please, you're just sad that Garry's taken now."

Red chuckled, "Perhaps that's a factor too." She leaned against the wall, and let out another sigh.

"Well, want to go play cards or something?" Chucky asked, "I think I can rope in a few member of my family to play too…"

"Might as well." Red shrugged, walking out of the house. After all, the two needed a little alone time and she was more than willing to give it to them. All joking aside Red felt extremely proud and happy for Mary at the same time – it really was as if the girl she had known all her life had grown up, and from looking at Chucky, she knew the doll was thinking along similar lines. They knew Garry would treat her well, so there was nothing to worry about.


	9. Date Preparation

Date Preparation

The next few weeks were quite interesting – while Mary had been able to take a few steps in the room, she quickly learned that since she had completely changed her body, many of the tasks that she was used to doing in her younger body were much different in her older body. The simple act of walking, for instance, threw her off occasionally, especially with her added height. Fortunately for her, Garry was there constantly to help her, and she was grateful that he never once laughed at her while she was adjusting.

She and Garry were both in the library on their knees at where the table was situated, Mary was wearing another dress – this time it was red, at Red's insistence, and Garry was dressed in his usual professional get-up, despite the fact that more often than not, Mary was the one assisting him than he was assisting her. They weren't using the chairs because the table was a bit too low to the ground for them to lean forward comfortably, and they were simply doing calculus assignments – or rather, in Mary's case, trying to hold a pencil in her larger hand.

"Stupid pencils…" She mumbled as she tried yet again to get a grip on it so she could do the calculus problem.

"Like this." Garry reached over and placed the pencil properly in her left hand, "Now try it." She started to write, and smiled as it seemed to start to come naturally to her after that.

"Thank you." She grinned, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Don't worry about it – you can repay me by helping me out with this problem." He showed her the equation that he was having difficulty with, "I have no idea how to do this, and the book doesn't really make any sense to me."

Mary nodded, "Ok, to do this, you got to…" She started to explain the problem to him, and all the steps he had to do to solve it. It took a little bit, and she had to explain some parts of it to him again in even greater detail, but eventually he got it and was able to repeat it with another similar problem.

"It's funny," He muttered, "How I used to be the one who taught you this kind of thing, and now you're the one teaching me."

"Yeah," She giggled, her eyes shining with amusement as her eyes looked at him, "It is a strange change of pace."

"Honestly, a new change of pace isn't that bad at all," He turned to look over at her, "You're looking fantastic today, by the way." He ended the statement with a grin that just seem to come to him naturally.

"You told me that this morning," She responded as she smacked his head lightly, "We're not going to do anything until we get this lesson over with, ok?" He started to laugh out loud at that, confusing the hell out of her. "Why are you laughing?"

"Oh, I'm just thinking," He chuckled a few more times, "I – I'm just thinking about how many other people would want to be in my position right now, because this is a common start to a lot of fantasies that guys have."

"And what fantasy is that?" She asked, raising her eyebrow as she watched him shrug.

"A naughty teacher, pretty much is what I'm getting at," He explained it in a nutshell.

"Really? That's a thing?" She asked, seeming unconvinced, her lips forming a frown, "Are you just trying to fool me?"

"I promise, it's true!" He raised both hands and waved them in front of his chest, "Serious!"

She shrugged, and turned back to doing her assignment, and Garry followed suit shortly after. The only noise between the two of them was the soft taps of their pencils as they lifted them up, and the occasional sound of them erasing their work to start over again. Mary would occasionally fumble with the pencil, and would have to have Garry show her how to hold it again, but other than that, things were going very smoothly. Another few minutes passed, and Mary decided to speak up again, "So, if there's a naughty teacher what other fantasies are there?"

"What?" He blinked a few times, his focus breaking as he drew a sharp line across the page, "Crap…" He shook his head and looked over to Mary inquisitively.

Mary adjusted her glasses, suddenly feeling a bit dumb for asking, "Uh, never mind. Pretend I never said anything."

"No, really, what did you ask?" Garry pressed, "Something about fantasies?"

She sighed, knowing that Garry wasn't going to let her get out of this now. "I asked what some other fantasies guys usually have are." She peeked over to see that Garry was looking at her in surprise.

Garry paused for a second to think, and finally responded with, "I think the easier question would be, what fantasies don't people have?" He chuckled, "Why do you want to know?"

"I'm just curious." She answered nonchalantly, returning her eyes to her assignment, and trying to pretend that she wasn't at all interested.

Garry's eyes returned to his paper as well, and as he continued his problem he started to speak, "Well, there's a whole lot. I won't list the uh, explicit ones, but there's so many other dress-ups that women can use to recreate a fantasy for a guy." He blushed, "You wouldn't believe the kind of stuff I heard in the room across from me when I attended college…"

Mary blushed, but her curiosity got the most of her, "What did you hear?"

"Some guy named Takashi and his girlfriend – Seiko I think her name was – they were foreign exchange students from Japan, and let me tell you, they were LOUD. And well… Yeah, I'll just leave it at that." He chuckled a bit to hide the fact that he felt a bit uncomfortable talking about it, "Sorry, that was probably a little too much detail."

Mary wondered if she should really bother pursuing the conversation, "Well… What did they do? I mean, other than the obvious, of course."

He sighed, "Do you really want to know?" He looked over to her with a questioning look.

She nodded, her hand holding the pencil shaking too much to bother writing with it, so she set it down and looked over at him, "Yeah, what did they do?"

"Role play mostly – or at least I assume that is what it was. A lot of the times I couldn't understand them because they were speaking in Japanese, but before they got, uh, intense with one another, I could vaguely make out the fact that they were playing roles." He let out a forced laugh, "It was… quite interesting to hear, I suppose."

"What is role playing?" Mary asked. In all of the years Garry had been in there with her, that was the first time she heard that term.

"It's pretending to be someone or something else, pretty much." He explained, "It's pretty popular to do in a lot things, or so I hear. I don't know, I've never done it before."

"Hm, well… We are a couple, right?" She asked, a blush crossing her face as she did. She looked down exclusively at her paper and focused intensely on it, not wanting to see Garry's reaction to what she was about to say.

"Well, I do consider you to be my girlfriend, and I assume you consider me to be your boyfriend, so yes, we are." He replied, trying to erase the dark line he created on his paper, but he had little luck in doing so.

She nodded, "Then… Maybe… We can… Do that." Even with her eyes still looking solely at her paper, she could still almost feel Garry go still as he turned to look at her.

Mary had been an adult for only a mere month – she was still adjusting to movement as an adult over all of that time. She was mature, true, and she certainly acted the age she made herself become, but for her to suggest something like THAT to him, well… It made his brain draw up a blank. He dropped his pencil, forgetting about the line he wanted to erase, "Wh – What?!"

"Well, I've been an adult for so long and you haven't even touched me in _that_ way before! I was trying to be subtle about it, but you didn't seem to get the hint!" She practically yelled, her entire face turning a very bright red.

"Uh – Buh – Eh?" He let out, unable to form a coherent sentence. His mind was jumbled from what Mary was telling him, so he just stared at her in surprise.

"Honestly, Garry. You're not supposed to let the girl be the one to ask you." She sighed, crossing her arms, and trying not to appear like she was also embarrassed out of her mind for bringing it up.

"But – But…" He shook his head, "You're still getting used to that body! W – We can't do that yet! And that's not even mentioning what would happen if you were to suddenly get pregnant or something!" He exclaimed – there really were a lot of precautions to take!

"I'm learning to use this body just fine, and Garry, I'm a painting, I _can't _get pregnant. It's impossible for me." She explained to him. The fact that she couldn't have children was still a sore point with her, but it was more important that Garry knew it was impossible than anything else.

"That's true, I suppose, but why would you want to do it? You can't feel anything." He asked, his red face coming under control. His gaze finally connected with hers, and neither looked away.

"Because it's what lovers do, right?" She asked, "I love you, and I don't want you to think that I don't…" She averted her eyes away from his, looking to the floor.

"Mary…" He sighed, "I love you too, but you've got this all wrong. I wasn't doing anything sexual with you because I don't love you, but it's because I respect you – I know you haven't grown used to that body yet, and I know you can't feel, so for you, there's practically no benefit for doing it at all. Also, just because we don't have sex doesn't mean we don't love each other – where did you get that dumb idea?" He shook his head in astonishment as he finished talking, looking to Mary for an answer.

She blushed, "Well… in some of the books I've read…"

"You've got to stop reading those trashy novels." He mumbled, shaking his head again, "They're not a good source of information about these things!"

"Well I just assumed! Every time when the boy admits that he likes the girl they just go ahead and do _it_! So I figured that it was some sort of ritual that is done to prove that you love each other!" She looked pointedly away, unfolding and folding her arms multiple times, unsure of what exactly to do with them. Finally she just sighed, and let them fall to her side, though they occasionally twitched.

Garry let out a sigh. Even though Mary had learned so much about human customs and things from him, there were still things she had no clue about. "Red taught you about sex, right? It's a process where the woman gets pregnant and all that jazz, you know that, right?"

"I know that," Mary mumbled, "But I thought it was a way to say 'I love you' too." She was still looking away, but she appreciated the fact that Garry was calmly explaining it to her.

"People generally do it because it feels good," He explained, "But it doesn't always mean that the two love each other. A lot of times – perhaps even most of the time – it's done simply because both people want to feel good, and they don't feel any love or commitment to one another."

"Really?" She muttered, looking back over to him, "But…"

"It's a romantic point of view that sees it as something you only share with your true love, but in the realistic point of view, that just simply isn't the case." He shrugged, giving her a light smile when he noticed she was looking at him again, "It's a nice thought, though."

"Oh…" She mumbled, "I'm sorry. I just interpreted it wrong then." She felt stupid for even thinking that, though she supposed that if she COULD feel, then she'd be able to understand what Garry was saying better, since the books she occasionally read went into great detail on the feelings that they were experiencing.

He chuckled, and he reached over to pat her head – a die-hard habit that she never really bothered to try and break him out of. "Mary. I love you; don't ever think that you have to do something to 'prove' that you love me. I already know that you do, and that's more than enough for me."

She smiled, already feeling immensely better, "Thank you."

He looked back down at the math equations that he was doing, and shook his head, "Well… My mind is officially distracted. You want to go get something to eat instead?"

Mary nodded, "That sounds good." Garry closed the textbook they were sharing, and the two got up – Garry stretched a bit while Mary made sure she stood up without needing any assistance or tripping over. Once they were both up, Garry reached forward and held onto Mary's hand as the two of them walked to the painting that would provide them with lunch. Along the way however, Mary kept looking to Garry and away again.

"What's on your mind?" He finally asked when he did it for the fifth time over the course of twenty seconds. It looked like she was trying to be subtle about it, but she was doing a horrible job.

She jumped a tad bit when he spoke to her, and she looked aside, "I'm just wondering." She muttered, "D – Do you like me the way I look?"

"I said you looked fine earlier. Mary, what's with all the insecurities today?" He asked seriously, as he came to a halt, turning his gaze over to her, "You were acting just fine yesterday, and the day before that, and so on. Why are you asking me all of these things now?"

She frowned, and looked down to the floor, tapping the edges of her fingers together. Looking at his feet, she mumbled, "It's stupid…"

He sighed, "Look Mary… I love you for you; I don't really care how you look, all right? Now can you please tell me why you're acting like this? Where's the strong girl I knew who would do anything to learn and not care what others say about her?"

Mary chuckled, his description of her made her feel much better already. "You're right… I'm sorry. I'm just being really stupid today, it's just that I was talking to Blue, and she was telling me all these things..."

"Like what?" He asked, though he already had a good idea now, considering how Mary had been acting the entire day.

"She was telling me about how I wasn't pleasing you like how I should be, and how I haven't done anything to prove that I love you, and she mentioned that I should have altered my body more when I made myself grow up…" She listed off with her fingers, as she tried to recall everything Blue told her.

"And you listened to her? Mary, you know she's nuts, right?" He asked in disbelief.

"I know! But this sounded plausible, you know?" She shrugged, looking up from the floor to him in the process, "It just… I don't know, it sounded like real things to consider."

"Not really, not to me anyway, but I know if I see her I'll be sure to smack her upside the head." He muttered, feeling immensely annoyed at Blue for messing with Mary's head.

"Don't bother," Mary grumbled, "I have half a mind to do it myself now…" She let out a sigh, "Red was right, you're too much of a gentleman – I should have known that Blue was just lying to me, but I just want to make this work, especially now that I'm old enough for you!"

"It is working." Garry assured her, "Not stop being the insecure Mary, and go back to being the strong woman that I love, ok?" He reached over and laid a firm grip on her shoulder, and she reached up to hold his hand.

"Yeah, ok." She smiled, and she took a step forward and wrapped her arms around him, "Thank you. I needed that."

He wrapped his arms around her and smiled, "Don't worry about it, now come on."

She nodded, "Ok. Let's go get something to eat." With that, the two parted from their embrace, and continued down the hall to get some food.

XxXxXxX

"Hey, Mary…" Garry spoke up while he and Mary were reading in the library one evening.

The two were seated on the couch, and Mary was leaning into his side as she read her book. Garry also had a book open in his left hand, while his right hand was wrapped around Mary. Hearing him say her name, Mary looked up towards him.

"What is it?" She asked, making sure to place a finger in the book so she wouldn't lose her page. She looked up at his above her glasses, and tilted her head to the side questioningly.

"Do you want to go on a date tomorrow?" He asked with a small smile, turning a little red from the question.

Mary blinked a few times, at the surprising question, and she asked the only thing that popped into her mind the moment he asked, "How?"

"I don't know," He answered honestly with a shrug, "But I'm sure we can make something work."

"Aren't you supposed to take me to a really fancy restaurant and give me flowers? And then we can go see a movie?" She asked, playfully smiling to let him know she wasn't being serious.

He chuckled at her description, "Typically. That's the gist of it, at least. Given our current situation in here, it might be difficult to do."

"So how can we do that in here?" She asked, looking up at his face from his lap, "Like you said, it might be difficult to do in here."

"Heh, I suppose it was a stupid thing to ask." He laughed it off, and tried to return to his book, but Mary reached up and lowered it.

"No – No." She shook her head when she was sure she had his attention again, "I'm all for it, I'm just curious to know how you'd pull it off, considering I've lived in this gallery for over a hundred years, and you have been here for six – maybe seven years now."

He nodded, considering what she just told him, and then his mind wandered to what he could possibly do. "That's true, but if you're up for it, I promise I can make something work."

She smiled, her eyes shining brightly as she looked up at him, "That means I get to wear my best dress, right?"

"Well, not necessarily your best – whatever is comfortable for you to wear, that is what I intend to do anyway – but I suppose I should make sure my clothes are at least a little nice." He added, again shrugging, "It doesn't need to be too formal."

"Maybe I should go ask Red for some help…" Mary mumbled, lost in her thoughts as she thought about what he just told her, "She seems to know more about this kind of stuff than I do."

"So, tomorrow night at six?" He asked, bringing her attention back from her thoughts. She looked up at him, and blinked a few times owlishly before she realized where she was and what she had been doing.

"That sounds perfect!" She answered, grinning widely at him. It was clear that she was more than excited for the date, since it was something she had yet to experience.

Garry chuckled as he turned back to his book, and he watched as Mary went back to hers, but was clearly not paying it any attention, since her eyes seemed to be glazed over and she was giggling every once in a while. After another hour of not being able to focus on his book, Garry shook his head and got up and went to return the book through the painting in the back of the library, where he and Mary were able to get the most up to date books and magazines, and it was a good thing too, since it allowed him to keep up on some of his favorite series, not to mention keep a track on the date and time.

After eating dinner that night, the two went back to Mary's room, and went to sleep. Like always, Mary took off her glasses and set them on the nightstand beside her bed, and snuggled into Garry's side, and he wrapped an arm around her and held her close as he closed his eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.

The following morning, as the two woke up, Mary practically shot to her feet, and looked excitedly down at him, "Are you excited?" She reached over to the nightstand by their bed, and put on his glasses, "Today is going to be great!"

He let out a groan, and slowly sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed as sleep still tugged at the corners of his mind. "Meh…?"He managed to let out.

"Today's our date!" She reminded him with a light tap on his head, "Remember? You asked me out on one yesterday!"

He nodded, yawned, and he started rubbing his eyes, "I see."

"I can't wait! You have to show me the best time ever, since this will be our first date – well, mine anyway, I don't know whether you've been on one before." She took in a deep breath after letting all of that out, and smiled at him, "I'm going to go see Red and have her help me!" She seemed to be very active spinning around the room, and Garry was positive that there were sparkles coming from her eyes as she talked.

"Why Red?" He asked, finally getting the fog out of his head. He was still very sleepy, but at least he was able to have a coherent thought now.

"Because she's my big sister! They're supposed to help out, right?" She looked over to him inquiringly.

"I wouldn't know," He yawned again, "I didn't have any siblings."

"Oh well! Make sure you're not in here when I get back Garry; I want you to be really surprised to see me! You'll fall in love all over again!" She gave him a quick hug, and then she rushed out of the room, energy practically radiating off of her.

"Huh…" He mumbled, "She's pretty excited…" He paused – he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do for her, and now she was expecting this to be the best thing ever. How in the world was he supposed to do anything new and original for her in here? Especially since she had probably been to every corner in the gallery? His calm demeanor slowly changed, and his mind began to panic as he thought more about it. This wasn't good.

"Crap…" He stood up, and went to his dresser and pulled out some clothes he could wear to the date. Should he go casual with a polo shirt, or maybe get something a bit more formal? How about his jeans – should he even bother with jeans and just wear khakis instead, should they be baggy? What type of cologne should he wear? "Oh, wait…" He mumbled, "She can't smell, so I suppose cologne isn't needed…" That was good, since he had no idea how he would get any in the first place.

He looked in the mirror that was above Mary's dresser, grateful that she wasn't in there right now, and looked at his hair – did it look fine? Was he making an embarrassment out of himself? How should he comb it? He let out a sigh, trying to calm down, "Ok. Just calm down Garry…"

Why did he _promise _Mary that he would make it different? How in the world could he accomplish that? There was nothing he could really think of to do with her! He could take her to eat, but she couldn't taste food anyway, and she only did it now because… Because… He had no idea why she ate food with him. Maybe it was to provide him company, or she wanted to seem more human? Oh well, it was an irrelevant train of thought, all that mattered was that she couldn't taste food, so maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to try doing something regarding food.

However… She might at least appreciate the thought that went into it. Mary seemed to be a very emotional girl, and she might appreciate the fact that he saw her as human and wanted to make this like a 'normal' date, as normal as a date could become in here anyway. "So if I take her out to dinner, that's one thing… What else?" He shook his head, "Argh, why didn't I think this through?!"

There were no movies, or – wait a minute. "If I can pull food and books from paintings, maybe I can pull a TV through?" He thought about it for a little bit, "But where would I plug it in, and could I get a DVD player too?" He mumbled to himself as he thought about it, "I know Mary would absolutely love that…" Too bad Mary was currently seeing Red – he wished that he could ask Red these questions, since that painting seemed to know where everything and anything was in this world.

"Maybe Chucky would know?" He mumbled, "I guess that's my best bet for now." He let out a sigh, and grabbed a polo shirt and some slightly baggy jeans, as well as the comb he set down on Mary's dresser a little bit ago. With those objects in hand, he rushed out of the room in a hurry, eager to get some help and some ideas on what to do.

XxXxXxX

"Big sis!" Mary ran over to the portrait on the wall where Red had her face firmly planted in the palm of her hand. Yellow and Blue were beside her on the wall, both chatting their heads off, until Mary came rushing over. Both Blue and Yellow quieted down when she came over, and watched her in great interested as she ran to Red's portrait.

"What is it, dear?" Red asked with a twitch in her eyes occurring every few seconds. Mary noticed it, and she was about to ask about it, but was interrupted from her train of thought by one of the other people there.

"Mary!" Blue exclaimed, giving her a wide smile, "How are you dear, and more importantly, how is Garry?"

Mary gave Blue a withering glare, "I'm talking to Red right now."

Blue recoiled in surprise, she didn't expect Mary to be so hostile towards her, "What is that for?"

"What you said to me a while ago!" Mary exclaimed, "Don't act like you don't remember it!" She crossed her arms as she continued to glare at the painting.

"What? Is it something about Garry?" Blue coyly put her hand to her chin, "I don't remember such a thing."

"Yeah, whatever." Mary grumbled, and turned back to Red, "Can you help me?"

"With what?" Yellow interrupted. Fortunately for Yellow, Mary didn't really have any issues with her.

"It's something I really only want Red to know." Mary explained. If either Yellow or Blue found out, this could potentially be disastrous, and that was something she wished to avoid at all costs.

Red nodded, "Ok girls, it appears that Mary needs me, so if you'll excuse me." She jumped out of her portrait that was hanging on the wall, and landed next to Mary, and took her hand, "Now let's go, Mary." She walked so quickly away that Mary tripped several times trying to keep up with her. Once they were away from Blue and Yellow, Red let go of Mary, and let out a deep sigh, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes, massaging her forehead in the process.

"Are you ok?" Mary asked, looking at her with concern, "Do you need my help, or do you need me to find Garry to see if he can help you?"

"I'm fine," Red gave Mary a slight smile, "My sisters can just be… annoying, and it's not like I can actually feel this twitch… It just starts to happen on its own whenever I hear too much of their inane ramblings."

"Your sisters can be really annoying at times…" Mary grumbled in annoyance, clearly recalling what Blue said to her before.

"Anyway, what is it you need from me?" Red broke Mary's darkening chain of thought, and Mary looked over in excitement, making Red blink in surprise. She had no idea what Garry did, but Mary seemed to be absolutely thrilled.

Mary's were bright and shining with excitement as she exclaimed, "Right! Garry asked me out on a date, and I wanted you to help me get ready for it!"

Red looked surprised, "Really? Did he now?" She crossed her arms as she looked at Mary – who was now a tiny bit taller than her – and she grinned.

"Yeah!" Mary nodded eagerly, "He asked me yesterday, and he promised that he would make it really good!"

"Oh, this is exciting!" Red stopping leaning on the wall and instead reached over and gave Mary a hug, "You're growing up so fast! So what are you going to wear?" She looked up, and watched Mary's excitement fade a little.

"That's what I wanted you to help me with." Mary told her, "Because I have no idea what I'm going to do!" Mary bit her bottom lip as she finished, looking at Red for guidance.

Red saw the nervousness in Mary's eyes, and started to laugh, "I – I'm sorry!" She laughed, letting go of Mary and instead covering her mouth in an attempt to stop, "B – But you seem so lost right now."

"I am lost! That's why I need your help!" She replied, "So will you help me?"

"Of course I'll help you." Red replied, "I'm your big sis after all…" She paused, and looked _up _to Mary's eyes, "Well… I'm your older sister, at any rate."

"Thank you." Mary let out a relieved breath, and smiled at Red, "So what do I need to do? I've only ever read about dates, but are they any different in real life? How am I supposed to react to what Garry does for me? What do I wear? What should I – "

Red put a finger to Mary's lip, "Mary, calm down." Mary nodded, and Red removed her finger.

"Ok." Mary muttered, breathing in and out a few times, and she forced herself to relax. It was fine to be excited, but for now, she had to be calm so she could prepare.

"It's been a while since I've seen you this excited." Red noted as Mary calmed down, "It's really nice to see, actually."

"I'm really excited, but… I feel kind of scared too." Mary admitted, chuckling a little bit, "Is that normal?"

"There's nothing to be afraid of, let me assure you." Red comforted the girl, "And being a little anxious is normal, especially for a first day. You probably don't even want to know what Garry's probably going through right now."

"How can you be so sure though? Have you ever been on a date before?" Mary asked inquiringly, "You seem to know a lot about this!"

Red nodded, "It might surprise you, but yes, a very long time ago…" Her eyes danced in amusement as Mary's mouth dropped open in shock.

"Really?" Mary asked in surprise. It was difficult for her to believe that Red used to do things like that.

"It's not that hard to believe, is it?" Red asked, with her lips curved into an amused smile.

"Well, it's just… We've been stuck in here for so long; I can't imagine you being able to go on a date with anyone, so I'm trying to figure out who it could possibly be." Mary explained her reasoning to her.

"I used to be kind of a, well, bitch, back then." She admitted to Mary, deciding to be blunt, since even now that was the best approach when it came to Mary. "You should know, that Guertena created me based on the women who were only after his wealth, and that personality is what I retained when I was first created – I wanted money and I wanted things that only pleased me."

Mary frowned, "I can't imagine you like that." Red had always been her nice older sister, so the thought that she was selfish or rude was just hard for her to even picture in her mind.

"This was before we met – one day, a man came into the gallery, into this world of ours, and I chased after him, of course, like I always do, but this man was different…" She paused as she tried to recollect her thoughts.

"How was he different?" Mary asked, clearly engrossed in the tale.

"He didn't want to fight, and he actually managed to subdue me," Red blushed, "Usually people run away from me out of sheer horror, since I'm a painting chasing them screaming my head off as I crawl across the floor, you know, that kind of thing terrifies most people."

"But it didn't scare him?" Mary wondered.

"Nope, not him at all. After he subdued me, we talked for a while, and he left. I thought that was the last time I would ever see him, but then he appeared again…" Red trailed off, "After a little while, he admitted that he kept coming to see me, and eventually he took me out on a date…" She smiled, "It was then that I learned that love isn't about money or what you can get from the other person, but it's about how you feel up here." Red tapped the side of her head to illustrate her point.

"What happened after that?" Mary asked, "Why haven't I seen him around?"

"He left after a date one day, and never came back." Red finished her tale, and she shrugged, "I never saw him again."

Mary looked shocked, "What? Really? That's it?"

"Yep." Red nodded with a frown on her own face as she remembered the distant past, "I was sad for years, and then shortly after that I met you."

"That's really sad…" Mary mumbled, feeling immensely sorry for her big sis. She really didn't know what else to say to that, and just stayed silent.

Red shrugged, "I'm over it now, but yes, at the time, it was sad." There was a long silence between the two of them, and Mary awkwardly looked away, unsure of what to do or say. "Anyway, you were saying that you needed help with your own date, right?" Red got things back on the rails, though Mary still looked hesitant.

"Yeah, but… Are you comfortable helping me?" Mary asked, looking uncertainly at Red.

"Mary…" Red rolled her eyes, "I said I was over it. Of course I want to help you; you're my little sister!"

Mary smiled faintly, "Thank you."

"Now come on, let's go see what you have to wear!" Red excitedly spoke up, holding Mary's hand, and she started to drag her through the hall towards where her room was located.

"How should I react to what he's doing though?" Mary asked as she continued to follow Red. Fortunately, unlike earlier when Red was dragging her away from her sister, she was going at a much slower pace, so Mary didn't trip much at all.

"Don't be an actress, Mary." Red shook her head, "Be genuine. Don't try to make him feel better by going along with it and smiling – it will hurt his feelings if he catches on, and if you can't be open with your emotions with him over such things, then your relationship isn't going to work in the long run."

Mary nodded, "Ok, so be honest with my emotions… What else should I know?"

"Just be yourself. Garry will do everything he can to make this special for you, and I can guarantee that the one way you'll make him the happiest is if you just be yourself. Garry's a pretty smart person – especially for a guy – so he'll know if you're just faking your emotions to make him feel good."

"Ok, is there anything else other than that?" Mary continued to nod along to the instructions Red was giving her, as they continued into the dark room, following the road Mary drew so many years ago.

"Well you have to look nice." Red shrugged, trying to think of other things she should do.

"I intended to do that!" Mary smiled happily, "I want him to think I'm beautiful, and say that he loves me a lot!"

"Then I hope you have a good dress to wear." Red smiled right back, "Though I think he's going to say that regardless of what you wear. Other than that… Hm, is there anything else to think about?" Red tapped her chin in thought as the two continued down pathway to Mary's house.

"What exactly should I expect? Is this going to be just like I read in the books?" Mary asked, clearly remembering all the romantic settings she read about over the years.

"No." Red shook her head immediately, "Doing that is just setting yourself up for failure."

"Why?" Mary asked, clearly taken aback by that answer.

"Because a lot of the situation in romance novels are idealized and romanticized situations that, more often than not, will _never _happen in real life." Red explained, "Garry will go all out, I'm sure, but just don't expect gigantic things, especially since we're in here." She motioned to the gallery they were all stuck in.

"I guess that makes sense." Mary mumbled, looking down in disappointment.

"Don't act so disappointed." Red gently gave Mary's shoulder a pat, "It'll be fine."

"I'll love anything Garry does for me, since he did it with me in mind… That makes me feel…" Mary struggled to find a good enough word, "Really special. I think?"

"As it should." Red replied, "He's doing this all for you, so it's fine if you feel that way!"

Mary smiled, "I don't think I'm going to have any problems with this at all." She meant every word of what she just said, and she honestly really looked forward to the date.

"That's the right attitude." Red nodding approvingly as the two finally reached Mary's home, and Red opened the front door, "Now come on, I can't wait to help you find some clothes to wear! Oh… When is your date anyway?"

"Garry said six." Mary told her, remembering the conversation from the previous day clearly in her head.

"Then that gives us PLENTY of time to work with!" Red laughed as she and Mary entered the house.

XxXxXxX

"So can you help me?" Garry asked, "Please?"

"Hm…" Chucky looked behind her where all of her siblings sat, "What do you guys think?"

"Help him!" They all cheered, and some even stood up and started to do standing ovations. Garry wasn't sure why they were so excited, but he was glad that they were at least willing to help him nonetheless.

"Well, I guess that's your answer." Chucky chuckled as she turned to look at Garry, "We'll help you in any way we can."

Garry let out a sigh of relief, and smiled at all the dolls, "Thank you." There was again a loud murmur as all the dolls began speaking excitedly at once, turning to the doll at their side and speaking in what could only be described as a very loud whisper. The Doll Room was abuzz in excitement, and everyone there was more than willing to help out Garry, even the gigantic doll in the portrait right across from the door seemed eager to help out. There was once a time when Garry would have been deathly afraid of coming in there, but that time had long since passed, and he just smiled gratefully as he scanned his eyes across the room at all of the dolls willing to assist him. He still found their blue bodies, red eyes, and stitched mouths kind of creepy, but he could handle it just fine now. He walked forward and looked across at the dolls, and they all quieted down as he did so.

"Ahem…" He cleared his throat, "Ok, so… Do you guys know what a TV is?" He figured he might as well start with the basics of the basic first, to see how knowledgeable they were.

"TV – television – shows moving pictures!" Several random dolls perked up at the same time, screaming out the definition immediately after he asked, surprisingly him.

"Good." Garry nodded, feeling better already, since the dolls knew what it was, "Do you guys know whether I can manage to bring one into this world?"

There was dead silence for a few seconds. Another few seconds passed, and finally one spoke up, "That sounds like a no." Chucky answered.

"Damn," Garry mumbled, "I was hoping that there'd be some way to pull one in through a painting and show Mary a movie or something, since she had never seen one before – I don't even think she knows what a TV looks like, despite the fact that I drew one – wait – drew one!"

"Oh, someone has an idea!" Chucky giggled as she watched realization dawn in Garry's eyes. He began to pace back and forth across the room in thought, mumbling to himself.

"If it's possible to draw a lamp and have it provide light, or a sun that provides heat, or a bed that's soft, then maybe it would be possible to draw a Television?" He continued to pace back and forth, "But maybe it would be too complex… A Television has a lot of different parts, but on the other hand, a sun is even _more _complex…" He continued to mumble to himself.

"Garry?" Chucky called, trying to get him out of his thoughts. Fortunately, it worked, and Garry perked up when his name was called.

He shook his head, and looked back up at the dolls, "Ok, I'm going to test this! I don't have the ability to make the things I draw come out into this world, but you guys do, right?"

"Right!" All of the dolls yelled their answer, and Garry could have sworn the room shook from the sound of all of their voices calling at the same time.

"Good, good…" Garry mumbled, "Ok. Then I'm going to need you." He pointed at the gigantic doll in the portrait, "To pull out the TV once I draw it. You guys," He turned to the dolls that were sitting there, "I need some of you to go to the library and see if it's possible to get some DVDs from there. I know some libraries hold movies, so keep looking until you're positive there's nothing there. I also need some of you to keep tabs on Mary and tell me if she is coming close to me, all right? I'm also going to need some more of you to help carry things too."

"Like what?" Chucky asked, clearly intrigued with how elaborate Garry was setting things up for Mary.

"Well, I figure most dates are just going out to eat, perhaps a movie here and there, right?" Garry looked down at the doll, as if he were expecting an answer from her.

"I wouldn't know," Chucky bluntly told him, "I'm a doll, in case if you forgot."

"Right, I guess that makes sense." He shook his head, "We are in the library too often, so I want to try to find a room that is just for _us_. One that will be remembered as our 'date' room, you know? With that in mind, I want to make furniture for going out to eat – make it look like a really fancy place. I'm going to need you and your siblings to help carry some chalk and other things so I can make this happen."

"Going all out, I see." Chucky replied, though it was clear that she was amused, and more than willing to help.

"Speaking of which, do you have any idea of a room or two that I can possibility use for that?" He finally looked down to Chucky, wondering if the doll could provide him with that.

"Garry, my dear friend, I've lived here all of my life, of course I know of some rooms just for you!" Chucky replied, giggling her usual insane giggle at the end of that sentence.

Garry smiled, "Great! Then let's do this!" He clapped his hands together, clearly ready to get to work. The dolls all cheered, and started organizing themselves right away. Two were dispatched to go keep an eye on Mary, while six were sent to the library to go search for DVDs. Another six were sent out to go fetch drawing supplies, and the big one in the portrait came out, going over to stand next to Garry. Chucky and the remaining five dolls all gathered around Garry and the largest doll.

Garry looked down at his watch, "Ok, we have ten hours to do this…" He shook his head, "I'm such an idiot for not preparing for this sooner, then I wouldn't have to rush. Though Mary almost never leaves my side, so she would be suspicious…" He mumbled to himself.

"Oh well, not much you can do about it in any case!" Chucky replied, "Now follow me, I'll take you to the rooms you need to go to!" He led Garry, the big doll, and the other five dolls out of the doll room and led them down the hall and to the right, into another very long and dark hallway. Garry was struggling to see, and had to keep a grip on the big doll beside him since this was a place he had never been to before, and it was really dark.

"Here's the first room!" Chucky called as they stopped at a door, and Garry reached forward to open it. Inside was simply a large empty room, with no furniture or defining features at all.

"I can hardly see. I'll need to set up lamps in the hallway out there…" Garry mumbled, looking around the room. It was simply a room that was just about thirty feet by twenty, and he walked around the edges to make sure there were no surprises hidden within. "Do any of you guys have a piece of chalk that I can use?"

"No, but the little guys should be here soon to give you some!" Chucky called out. She too was wandering the room, looking around, though she quickly grew bored since there was nothing even in there.

They waited only two minutes, and Chucky was right, six dolls, each carrying two chalk apiece rushed into the room, and offered him them. He nodded gratefully to them, and took the first one to arrive, and he quickly drew a lantern on the ground, "Can you pull this up?" He asked the doll closest to him, and it obeyed him, pulling out the lamp.

"Here you go!" The doll squeaked as it handed it over to him.

"Thank you." He answered, holding the small lamp in his hand and he turned it on, quickly closing his eyes again as the brightness exploded from the lamp. He slowly opened his eyes again, and looked around, "This room will be perfect!" He drew a few more light sources – all of them on the walls over by the door, but he left the other half of the room dark.

"What's going over there?" Chucky asked, as Garry drew in a light switch, and tested to make sure that it worked with the lights that he had drew onto the walls. Garry looked to where Chucky was pointing, and saw that Chucky was referring to the dark half of the room.

"The TV is going to be there," Garry answered, "That's why I need you for." He nodded towards the big doll, and it followed him over to the darkened half of the room. Garry looked at the wall, and stretched his hands as far as it could go as he drew a very big rectangular shape. He drew on a few more details – a power button, a spot to insert DVDs, volume control, and then he drew a stand for it to sit on, "All right! Can you pull all of that out for me?" The doll let out a grunt and stepped forward, reaching its large arms across and grabbed the TV at both ends, and slowly pulled it into existence. Several of the small dolls ran over and started to pull out the stand, and not even a minute later, the big doll gently settled the television set onto the stand below.

"This is great!" Garry gushed, and he knelt down on his knee and pressed the power button on the TV, and the screen instantly turned blue. Garry let out a sigh, and shook his head, "This feels so nostalgic – even though there's nothing on it, just the fact that there's a TV here at all is just… Wow." He turned to the dolls, "Thank you, but I'll still need your help with a few things!"

In short order, he had drawn a couch that sat a fair distance away from the large TV, and a small stand on either side of the TV, each with a lamp atop of them. "Garry!" Some dolls rushed into the room, but quickly got distracted and looked around in surprise, "ohhh…"

"What is it?" Garry asked, snapping them out of their daze. Their focus went straight back to Garry, though they looked confused for a little bit before they looked down and saw what they were actually holding.

"We have movies!" The six dolls exclaimed, all of them carry all different sorts of DVDs, and they dumped them on the floor in front of Garry.

"Good job!" He told them, kneeling down and looking at the selection that they had taken from the library. Being a library, a lot of the movies were documentaries. While he didn't think Mary would mind that fact, he didn't think it would be very appropriate for a date, so he looked for something else, and smiled when he noticed that they had brought back some Disney movies as well. This was good – he figured those would be good for a date!

"You look happy, did find something you like?" Chucky asked, coming over and eyeing the pile of what Garry called DVDs.

"Sure did," He nodded, gathering the cases and stacking them over by the TV, "Now let's see if this work…" He opened up the DVD tray to the TV, and put in the first DVD he got his hands on, and he crossed his fingers. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then the screen turned black, and disclaimers and warnings appeared on the screen, "It works!" When the DVD menu appeared on the screen, he had to create a remote, but after that, it was smooth sailing from there. He turned it off, and looked proudly around the room.

"Did we do good?" The dolls all around asked, looking up at Garry expectantly. Garry looked around the room at all of the dolls as if they were his soldiers, and he nodded his head once.

"You did great." Garry confirmed, and all the dolls started cheering loudly. He allowed them to cheer for a little bit longer, before he lifted up a hand to get their attention again, "But we're not done yet!"

"Now you need us to show you the other room, right?" Chucky asked, knowing that it was what Garry was going to ask of them.

"That's right, though let me create a few lights in this hallway while we're going through it, and I'll also need to create a clock in here too…" He went ahead and did just that, and then shortly after, he followed the dolls to the next room that was in the complete opposite direction. There was still a lot of work to be done, but for Mary, it was worth it.

XxXxXxX

Notes:

I know making a television and lights might be questionable, and they go a long way to making the gallery less horrifying and more homely, but the reason I made it happen is because that is exactly what it's becoming for Garry and Mary. Instead of a horrifying prison, Mary, and more importantly Garry, are both beginning to view it as their home. Hence why they are beginning to make the place look nice by giving it light and other such things.

I know it's a stretch, but then again, that's what fanfiction is for.

Thank you for reading! The date is next chapter, see you there!


	10. Date Night

Date Night

"Do you feel comfortable in it?" Red asked, smiling as she watched Mary do a small spin in her mirror. Though the smile fell when she saw Mary cross her arms and look at the mirror uncertainly.

"I don't know…" Mary mumbled, eyeing her dress in the mirror, would Garry like this? Would he find it too gaudy or unattractive?

"Remember, you don't want to overdress, just go with something you're comfortable in," Red reminder her for the umpteenth time. Mary glanced over at her away from the mirror, and Red could see her about to burst with questions.

"Should I show off some cleavage you think? Guys like that kind of stuff, right?" Mary asked, "How much skin do I need to show off? Is he going to care if I wear shorts instead of a skirt?" She started to voice all of her concerns to Red, since the woman always seem to know what was best in most situations.

"Mary, Mary!" Red interrupted her with a raised hand, "Wear whatever is comfortable!"

Mary sighed, "You keep saying that, but I don't know if I feel comfortable in anything." She walked away to the mirror towards her bed, where she had all sorts of clothes laid out on it roughly organized. She looked through them, trying to figure out a good combination, but it was more difficult than she could imagine.

"Then maybe you should create some clothes to wear?" Red suggested. She walked over to Mary's side and looked down at the choices, "Especially if you can't figure out something from this."

"No," Mary shook her head and with a loud groan, she sat down on her bed, "It takes me a few hours to make it just right, and I don't have all day to do that stuff."

"True," Red muttered, sitting beside Mary, and she put a comforting arm on her shoulder, "Why don't you just go in something casual then? You know, just something you'd normally wear."

"I could do that, but…" Mary bit her bottom lip and looked over to red nervously, "Shouldn't I at least dress up a little?"

"Do you want to do that?" Red asked, getting back to her initial question. She saw Mary give her a halfhearted glare for doing that, but she finally looked down thoughtfully at her hands as they gripped the hem of the dress she was wearing.

A few seconds later, Mary finally looked back up to Red, and nodded her head, "I – I think so." Mary muttered uncertainly at first. "Yeah, I do." She added on with more conviction a second later.

"If you want to do it, then do it." Red shrugged, "It's as simple as that." That had been what she was saying all day, but Mary finally seemed to understand, since she made her first real decision that day to dress up instead of going casual.

"Ok!" Mary nodded, standing up and taking off her current dress, and she tossed it aside onto the floor. She looked down at her bed, where she had most of her clothes still laid out, and picked out a green blouse, "Do you think he'd like the color green, or do you think he's sick of it?"

Red shook her head, "You know the answer to that." She saw Mary roll her eyes, but other than that, she only gave some verbal confirmation of what Red had been saying.

"Yeah, you're right." Mary mumbled, "Whatever is comfortable." She looked at it for a few seconds, and then she gently set it aside as she picked out a skirt to wear as well. Both items were modest – the skirt reaching to just above her knees, and they both covered a lot of skin, with the blouse itself barely showing any skin whatsoever.

"To answer your earlier question," Red spoke up, "I think that it's better if you don't show off your skin on the first date. Leave it to the guy's imagination. They like that kind of stuff, and it gives them a better impression of you."

"Did you read that somewhere?" Mary asked, giving Red an accusing glance.

Though it was not a serious question, Red still blushed, and she crossed her arms and shrugged, "Hm, well, maybe."

Mary ignored her for the most part and put on her clothes. With that done, she walked back towards the mirror and did a little twirl, but she again frowned, "It's missing something."

"I agree, actually." Red spoke up, giving an actual opinion for the first time. She looked back at Mary's bed, and finally picked out a cardigan, "Here, try this."

Mary looked at the garment, and she shrugged as she put it on. Looking at herself in the mirror, she started to chuckle and do a bit of posing just for the sake of it, "I think this doesn't look too bad, actually." She smiled; the white complimented her green blouse quite nicely, giving off an almost elegant look.

"Now that we've got that settled, it's time for some make-up." Red smiled, this was honestly what the woman was waiting for the entire day, and Mary could see a glint of excitement in the woman's eyes.

Mary giggled at her expression, "You're acting too excited about this."

"I've been looking forward to this for a while." Red replied, going over to Mary's dresser, where she had all sorts of make-up scattered atop it. She picked out a few, and then went over to the bed where she set them down. She looked over to Mary and exclaimed, "Now come on, get over here!" Not wanting to keep Red waiting, and feeling a bit excited herself, Mary did exactly as she asked.

XxXxXxX

Garry wiped the sweat off his brow as he finished the second room for his date, and he walked out into the hall and made sure to set up lights all around so it wouldn't be quite so dark. He put a lot of work into that room, so he really hoped that Mary would like it. He was amazed that he even got that much done with how little time he had to do it, even with the amount of help her got, but he was glad he did it; since he was almost sure Mary would love it. He glanced down at his watch, and noticed that it was an hour until six. Letting out a curse, he rushed back to the doll room (with a legion of dolls behind him), and quickly started to prepare.

"Can you go fetch me some water?" He asked Chucky, as he wiped away some sweat on his brow with the sleeve of his dirtied shirt.

"Sure thing." Chucky answered, leaving with some dolls to go do as Garry asked. With that done, Garry quickly began to get dressed, throwing off his worn clothes, and then he put on his polo shirt and his jeans he had brought. When he got those on, he started to comb his hair, though he had to use the dolls to make sure that he was doing it right, since there wasn't a mirror in there at all. Occasionally the dolls would start clapping, and that was when he knew that he was going in the right direction when it came to how his hair looked. "Here, Garry!" Chucky burst back into the room, holding a cup of water.

"Thank you," Garry replied as he reached down and took hold of the cup, gulping down the contents within seconds. He let out a big sigh, and set the cup aside, and crossed his arms, "So, how do I look? I think I may have made this date a little more fancy than I was anticipating, so do you think this is nice? Should I go get a suit?"

"Eh, all right I guess." Chucky muttered, glancing at him up and down. Garry looked down to the doll in surprise at her statement though, and the doll helplessly shrugged.

"It's just all right? Why?" Garry asked, genuinely curious to know why the doll thought that.

"It could be better is all I'm saying," Chucky replied with a shrug, and she went over to rejoin her family on the shelf, jumping up nearly arranged stacks of boxes to do so, "I think you're fine regardless of what I say, I really doubt Mary will give two craps what you look like."

"Maybe you're right…" Garry muttered, tapping his chin in thought, "But still… If you think it's not too good looking, maybe Mary would think the same thing."

"Sheesh, just go!" Chucky shouted in annoyance, and all of the dolls started chanting for him to do so as well.

"I guess I will since you all say so, I'll be sure to plan these things out from now on instead of doing it spur of the moment." With that stated her gave a nod, "I'm going to go see if Mary's ready now. Thank you all for your help!" He bowed gracefully to the dolls present in the room, emitting loud cheers, "If it weren't for you guys, I wouldn't have gotten even a tenth of what I wanted to do done!"

"It was nothing," Chucky replied, "Go have fun on your date." There was a bunch of high-pitch giggling as he left the room and closed the door behind him, and a stray thought hit him again – it was so weird how he was interacting with those dolls so casually now. There used to be a time over six years ago when he was afraid of those dolls, but now, well, he honestly didn't really mind them. They were nice company, really, and they were very helpful too if you were to ask nicely.

He let go of that train of thought however as he entered the black room towards Mary's house, and he opened the door, and walked across the hall to the door to Mary's room. He gave it a knock, "Hello, Mary?"

"Garry?" Mary answered immediately with a yelp, "You're here early!"

Garry checked his watch and winced, "Actually, it's six fifteen." He replied back nervously, chuckling under his breath. Well, at least Mary wasn't prepared either, so it was all right that he was late, right?

"What?! It's that late already?" Mary cried out, "Crap! Can you give me ten more minutes?!"

"That's fine." Garry answered, and he leaned against the wall next to her door, and he could have sworn he heard something laughing on the other side of the door, and then he remembered – Red, she was in there with her. What was only supposed to be ten minutes dragged into twenty minutes, and then twenty minutes dragged into thirty minutes. Garry was now slumped against the wall, twiddling his thumbs as he waited…

… And waited…

… And waited some more…

Finally, as it neared seven, he could hear the door to Mary's room unlocking, and he quickly jumped to his feet, and he let out a little curse as he realized that his legs were numb. He slapped them to return feeling into them, and then he quickly got back up to his feet and looked to the door to see Red there, looking at him in amusement.

"Uh… Hello." He really hoped she didn't see him making a fool out of himself.

"I bet you're glad that I'm standing here and not Mary, huh?" She couldn't stop the smirk that crossed her face, "Well, I'll be leaving now, you two love birds have a good time, all right?"

"Thank you, Red!" Mary called out, and soon the woman left, leaving Garry standing there feeling like an idiot, and Mary still in the room. Garry shook his head, and stood up straighter, and looked inside the room to see Mary walking out, and he had to stop himself from allowing his jaw to fall and his eyes to wander. She looked absolutely gorgeous, stunning, beautiful, any other word he could think of to describe the pinnacle of beauty would be appropriate.

She wore a green blouse and a cardigan over that, and she wore a skirt that reached down to her knees. In addition to that, she was wearing heels that boosted her height up a few inches, and her hair was tied into a bun, and stray strands came down in a curl, reaching to just below her chin. She wore more make-up than she ever had before – Her eyebrows looked more defined, the eye shadow made her green eyes seem brighter, there was hint of blush on her cheeks, and her lips were a delicate and subtle shade pinker than usual. Overall, she looked astounding.

"How do I look?" She asked nervously, averting her eyes since he was staring too long. That was a good sign, right?

"Amazing," he breezily answered, wishing that he could just walk over and kiss her right there. The only other woman he had seen in all these years that he even had a remote interest in was Red, but she never made him feel like this… He didn't want to use a corny line, saying that she looked like an angel or something, but really… she looked very good.

She blushed, just adding to her overall beauty, "Thank you."

Remembering what he intended to do, Garry shook out of his daze, though he did keep glancing back at her every now and then, and he bowed down to her, and he stole a line out of a corny romance novel, "May I have your hand?"

Mary smiled, "You may." She placed her hand in his, and blushed when she watched his hand wrap around hers. Never before had she wanted to be able to feel than at that moment. She wanted to feel his hand around hers, to feel his kiss, to feel his body… She pushed those thoughts aside before they ruined the moment, but they were always there, lurking in the background. Fortunately, it seemed that Garry wouldn't give her much time to dwell on those thoughts, since he had begun to lead her out of the house, and to the beginning of their date.

She looked around, wide eyed at the path that he set up for them to go through – the halls were lined with all sorts of new lights that weren't there before! It was so bright, and it felt as if they were walking through some new place, despite the fact that she had visited every area in the gallery more times that she could count. In addition to the lights lining the wall however, there was also a carpet on the ground that the two were walking on, again adding to the new feeling of this all.

"In here," He let go of her hand, and eagerly went to the door that the carpet led them to, and he opened the door for her, allowing her to go in first. She blushed, feeling that special feeling again in her mind, and she went in to the room, but stopped when she entered, and stood there, staring in shock.

"Garry…?" She gasped in astonishment, looking around the room, her eyes slowly widening as she took in the view.

"Do you like it?" He asked, walking in and standing beside her. He couldn't help but let a grin cover his face when he noticed how enraptured she was by the view.

"It's beautiful." She whispered her answer as she just continued to look. The somewhat small room had a table in the middle where the two of them could sit, with an elegant chandelier situated above it. She had no idea HOW he managed to even get that there! In addition to that however, and what caused her to stop in amazement, was that three of the walls had gigantic murals on them – depicting vast landscapes, and there were lights placed in strategic locations to make them look even better. One of the landscapes was a dense forest, with a river parting its way through. Another painting was open plains, and the lights made it look like the sun was shining on the yellow field. The final one was a picture depicting the top of a city scape, showing off all sorts of things she had never seen before.

"How did you do it?" She asked in wonder, even if it was Garry, a certified art professor, she knew he couldn't have done all of this in just a day.

"I had a _lot_ of help. There was no way I'd be able to do this in a month, let alone a single day on my own." He replied, "Chucky and her family, along with some of the other paintings decided to help me out."

Even knowing that, the fact that they managed to get this much done in ten hours still seemed nearly impossible, "It's amazing." She repeated, allowing him to understand her awe. She felt very special, knowing that he would go through all of this trouble just for her.

He chuckled, "I'm glad you like it, but I didn't bring you in here to just admire the pictures. Come on, let's sit down." She did as he asked; going to the chair that he pulled out for her. The chair and table both had very elegant looking patterns on them, and she was almost hesitant to sit on it, since it looked like a work of art. Finally she relented, and seated herself as close to the edge as she could. The top of the table had nothing on it, except for a candle in the middle that was already lit.

He chuckled, "This reminds me of old movies I used to watch when two people would go out on a date. It's a bit cliché, but I hope you'll enjoy it." He gave her a warm smile which she was very quick to return.

At this point, she didn't think that it was possible for her to not enjoy anything he did for her, so she just smiled, "I'm sure I will." Whatever was cliché for him was definitely not for her, and if cliché meant being this kind to her and giving her such a good time, she truly did not mind it one bit.

It was at that point when a headless mannequin opened the door to the room, and walked in holding a tray. Garry couldn't hide his smile as he watched the mannequin do its job, and it put down a dish for both Garry and Mary, before it walked off back where it came, being sure to close the door behind it. Mary blinked in surprise as it walked out, and she turned back to look at Garry in astonishment, "How did you convince him to do that?"

"I didn't." Garry replied with a short laugh, "I told you I got some help, Blue convinced him for me." He saw Mary's face immediately frown with worry.

"You told Blue about this?" Mary asked worriedly. Blue was quite envious of her relationship to Garry, though not nearly as much as Yellow, she supposed. Still, she wouldn't have told them anything.

"Don't worry," He smiled calmingly at her, "I told her that if she messed this up, then I would personally make sure that she would be punished." Perhaps Mary's behavior was rubbing off on him, since that was something she'd normally say to them – it was natural, right? He and Mary had seen so much of each other every single day for the past six or seven years that it was just normal for their behaviors to affect one another.

"That's quite a threat." Mary noted, though she did seem calmer, and her frown was replaced with a small smile instead. Garry felt better immediately upon seeing it, glad that she wasn't frowning anymore.

"It worked – she did as I asked." He shrugged. As far as he was concerned, that was all there was to it, and there was no reason for Mary to be worried.

Mary smiled, "It did." With that said, she looked down at the dish that was presented to her; Mary finally noticed that on it were some fruit – melon she believed. She looked up at Garry, and noticed that he was giving her a worried glance, and then she realized what he was trying to do. He was trying his damn best to make this as 'normal' of a date for her as possible, even down to what they would eat. He was trying to make her feel like a normal girl. She felt tears stinging her eyes, but she quickly blinked a few times to get rid of them, not wanting to ruin the make-up that Red spent so long applying, and she used the fork provided and smiled to Garry as she ate the food.

Following that, the door opened yet again, and the mannequin came back and took their now empty dishes, and replaced them with another dish, this time it had weird little… ball things. Mary had NO idea what they were, so she looked up at Garry. "It's Caviar." He supplied helpfully, grinning at her confused expression.

"What's that?" She asked in wonder, looking at the foreign food. She picked up her fork again, and began to poke at the balls, since it was yet again something she had never seen before.

"They're fish eggs, essentially." Garry replied, glancing down at the food.

"Really?" She mumbled, piercing through it with her fork, "Are they good?"

"I've never had it before," He chuckled, "So it'll be something new for both of us."

Mary smiled, glad that he had included her in that statement, and she nodded, "Yeah." She giggled as she watched Garry start to eat it, and watched him make a few faces. If she had to guess, she figured that he didn't like it, and for once she was glad that she couldn't taste it as she ate it, and she simply watched Garry in amusement.

Like before, their dish was taken and replaced with another one, this time a bowl of soup was placed in front of both of them. "Just out of curiosity," Mary spoke up, "How many dishes are we going to eat?"

"Six, I think." He mumbled, "I just told one of the dolls to go find something on it in the library, and now I just have them working to make sure they get the right stuff." He tried the soup in front of him, and he allowed a pleased smile to cross his face. Too bad, Mary was enjoying watching him making faces as he tried his best not to gag or spit out his last dish.

The next dish was a salad, and Mary looked at it oddly. "It's salad." He explained to her.

"I know, but it just looks like a bunch of leaves." She replied, "People actually eat this stuff?" She picked up one of the 'leaves' and looked at it closely. It just looked like a leaf no matter how she looked at it.

"It's better than you think," He chuckled, watching as she examined it, "And make sure you never say that to a vegetarian, they would lecture you for hours."

"A vegetarian?" She mumbled, setting it back down on her plate and giving him a confused look, "What's that?"

"Huh…" He tapped his chin, "That word actually hasn't come up since I've known you, weird." He shook his head, "It's just a person who doesn't eat meat, that's all."

"Why would you do that?" She asked, tilting her head to the side. Wasn't meat essential for the human diet for protein? Why would someone willingly not eat it?

"I'm not the right person to ask that," he chuckled, "I don't know myself. I don't think I could go for very long without eating meat."

"That's something to look up then," She noted, and Garry could see the fire ignite in her eyes. The next chance she got to go to the library, she would definitely be looking that up, and he would undoubted learn exactly why people want to be vegetarians, since he knew she'd be very eager to share the information. However, that wasn't here and now, so he simply ate the salad, and allowed the mannequin to take the dish away and replaced it with the fifth course.

This was the main course of the meal. There was steak that was cut into thin slices and served to each of them. Beside the steak was a potato was still steaming, and a roll was also served. Mary watched Garry eye it like a predator would eye its prey, and she couldn't help but smile as he went at it, holding back a little to make sure he wasn't acting like a complete slob. She couldn't help it, and she started to laugh after a few seconds. "Uh…" He stopped and looked up at her.

"Sorry!" She giggled a little bit more, "I'm sorry! It's just… The way you're eating that!" Garry was glad that Mary was Mary, and not some other girl, since he realized belatedly that perhaps he was eating it a bit too sloppily. If it was some other girl, he would have lost his chance with her, but Mary only laughed and seemed to be in an even better mood than before, since she was smiling brightly at him. Regardless, he still blushed, and nervously chuckled.

"I won't do that again. It's just really good, is all." He sat up straighter, and tried to eat more like a gentleman this time, he owed her that much at the very least.

"I'm sure it is delicious," She stated, still smiling as she watched him. She finally started to eat her own after watching him for a few more seconds.

It took a little bit, but eventually the mannequin arrived and took that dish away, placing a sixth dish in front of both of them. Mary's eyes widened and she let out an 'ohhh' as they were both served a slice of cake with a scoop of ice cream beside it. Additionally, they were served what looked like a very fancy glass, and some weird colored liquid was poured into the glasses. "What's this?" Mary asked, reaching for the glass, and gently stirring the contents with her finger.

"It's red wine," He answered, "Port wine, I believe." He took his own wine glass and took a little sip. She saw him smile, "Not bad."

"I see." She muttered, looking at her own now with a raised eyebrow. She read about wine, she knew it was an alcoholic beverage that was usually used during fancy parties and such, though it didn't have to be.

"You can have some tea instead, if you'd like." Garry replied, seeing that she was hesitant about drinking it.

She again smiled, feeling very special again, realizing that despite the fact that she wouldn't even be able to taste it to begin with, Garry was still treating her with absolute respect. She shook her head, "No, I'll try the wine. Thank you." She started to dig into the cake and ice cream, and given how Garry reacted to it, since he was smiling as he ate it. She too really liked it for different reasons – usually she at least knew how hard or soft something was with the amount of effort it took for her to chew it. The cake and ice cream however, simply seem to melt once it entered her mouth, something she wasn't quite used to. It was a novel experience, and she enjoyed it almost as much as Garry did.

The mannequin came back in and took their dishes when they were done, and simply left a small tray between the two of them with cookies on it, he refilled their wine glasses, and took his leave shortly after. Mary reached for a cookie, and nibbled on it, looking around at the paintings as she did so. "Did you enjoy it?" Garry asked, as he watched her looking around.

"This is the final course?" She asked instead of answering the question he gave her.

"Yeah, it was seven courses, not six. My bad." He replied with a small chuckle. He noted that she didn't answer his question though, and he was starting to worry, but like always, he realized that when it came to Mary, he really shouldn't worry too much.

She smiled brightly at him when she was finished looking at the paintings again, "I liked it a lot, thank you so much Garry, you don't know how much this means to me."

"I'm glad that you're so happy." He replied, and that wasn't a lie. He felt absolutely relieved that she seemed to be having such a good time, and was very happy that she enjoyed herself so much.

"Though I'm sad that the date is over all ready…" She let out a sad sigh, "You made me feel very special, Garry… Thank you so much."

"Actually, it's not over." He replied, grinning at her when her head perked up.

Her eyes shot open, and she smiled widely, "Really, there's more?" She didn't want to act like an excitable little kid, but she immensely enjoyed herself, so if he set up more, then she was very excited to see what else he had in store.

"I have one more thing planned." He replied, laughing at how excited she was.

"What is it?!" She asked excitedly, her eyes were shining with mirth, and she actually leaned forward a bit as she was looking at him.

"It's not quite as fancy as this," He chuckled, trying to hide his nervousness, "But I think you'll enjoy it regardless."

"At this point, I don't think there is much that you can do to make me not enjoy it." She replied honestly, "I've loved every moment of this so far!"

"I'm really glad to see you so happy." He replied with a less smile, "Are you ready to move on?"

She nodded, "I'm ready!" He stood up from his seat and went over to her, offering her his hand. She gratefully accepted it, and he led her out of the room and into the hallway, down the path they came from. A few minutes later, he turned and they continued onto a new path, it was yet another hallway that was decorated differently. Unlike the one before though, there wasn't a red carpet, but it still felt pretty new. They went to another door, and like before he opened it for her, letting her step in first.

As she walked in, she noticed the TV immediately, and her eyes locked onto it, "What is that thing?" She couldn't help but ask. It was something she'd never seen before, and she walked over to it with curiosity.

"It's a TV." He answered, "I promise you that this will be something new for you." He walked beside her, and he took hold of her shoulder and started to lead her to sit down.

"Something new?" She asked, as she allowed him to lead her to the couch in the middle of the room, and the two sat down on it. Garry then reached to the table on his end of the couch, and pulled out several thin cases. She was anticipating something amazing, since she had truly never seen something like this before.

"These are movies," He explained, showing her the thin plastic cases. Her eyes lit up then – she knew what that word meant, at the very least.

"What? Movies? Really? You mean like the moving pictures?" she asked excitedly, "How did you manage to find those?" She looked down at the cases he was showing her, and her eyes were alight with joy.

"They were in the library the whole time." He answered with a short laugh, "I guess we should have thought about this a lot sooner, huh?"

"Really? They were there the whole time?" She mumbled, "I didn't know at all."

"Neither did I! So I thought we could end this date with a movie." He replied to her, "And I'll let you pick out which one you want to watch. I decided to just go with Disney movies for now."

She looked through the several movies he had showed her, and she felt her excitement racing as she looked at the back of each movie and read the synopsis for each one. After a few minutes, she finally settled on 'The Lion King', handing it to him, "This one sounds good."

Garry nodded, "That is a good one. I remember watching that when it first came out in theaters a long time ago, I was just a little kid." He stood up, and went over to the TV set, and put the movie in, and then he went to sit back down beside her and turned off the lights in the room, and he started the movie with his remote.

Mary almost instinctively leaned into Garry's side as it started, and she watched in near awe as the movie began to play. This was the first time she had ever seen something like this – it was like the drawings were actually moving! It looked incredible, and she found herself letting out an excited gasp every now and then. When the sad parts played, she began to tear up – it was so sad how his father died, and he went over to his body to try and see if he was still alive! How could the movie be so cruel! She felt Garry's arm hold her firmly as she continued to watch.

When it ended, she let out a loud cheer and started to clap, and even Garry joined in with her as she continued to do it. "That was amazing!" She gushed, looking over to him, "Are ALL of them like that?!"

"They're different stories, but yeah, all of Disney's movies pretty much follow the same formula." Garry replied. She smiled, reached up to wipe her eyes, and then realized that by crying during that movie she had ruined some of the make-up around her eyes. She blinked a few times, and let out an annoyed groan. "Use this," Garry spoke up, handing her a tissue that he had in his pants pocket. She gratefully accepted it, and wiped away the makeup around her eyes.

"Thank you." She told him as she wiped away the ruined make-up around her eyes.

"You're welcome." Garry replied, smiling at her. He was thrilled that he made her so happy, and he was even happier that she was so into everything he did. He wasn't sure if the date would be successful, but given how much she was smiling and enjoying herself, he knew he did well.

"Garry…" She mumbled, breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Yes, Mary?" He still had his arm over her shoulder, and he looked questioningly at her, wondering what she had to say.

How could she show him that she appreciated everything he did for her during their date? Not only their date actually… For the fact that he stayed with her, that he loved her, that he was willing to do so much for her! This intense feeling she felt inside her mind – her love for him – she wanted to show him how much she loved him. Knowing of at least one way to do just that, she reached up, and wrapped her arms around his neck, and leaned in for a kiss. She melted in his grasp, and she let out a few gasps as they continued to kiss, before they finally parted. "I know I said it already, but thank you so much, for everything." She whispered in his ear.

"You're very welcome." He replied, keeping his arms firmly wrapped around her. She didn't mind his hold, and she too held onto him, smiling the entire time, so glad to have someone so loving staying with her. She leaned up to kiss him again and then again after that, and some more after that. It took them a while to leave that room, and finally head back to their bedroom to turn in for the night. The next date was planned for the following weekend, and both of them really looked forward to it.

XxXxXxX

Notes:

I've never been to such a fancy restaurant before, so I looked up a seven-course meal online. If I didn't do it correctly, I'm sorry.

Furthermore, I dug myself into a hole in regards to how much Garry managed to get done in a single day. I wanted him to do all of that, but I realize now after revising it how ridiculous it is that he managed to do it in such a short time. I should have made him ask her out a week ahead of time, because then it would at least be believable. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you for reading!


	11. Proposal

Proposal

The weeks turned into months, and the months slowly became years, and before either of them knew it, four years had passed since Mary's transformation. Throughout those years, Mary had finally learned to have full control over her body, and to pass the time on their off days, they would try to do some more romantic dates in the gallery. Alternatively, even though both of them were adults, they still played with the chalk, and read a lot in the library. It mostly came down to what they felt like doing that particular weekend after they were done with their lessons.

Ten whole years – Garry could scarcely believe that was how long he'd been in there for. Yes, there were times when it dragged, times when he and Mary fought and didn't talk for a day or two, and times when he really wished he could go outside and feel the sun, but for all intents and purposes, he was quite happy with his life. Mary was quite a wonderful woman, and while the thought of spending an eternity in the gallery was quite unsettling, even after all of this time, he felt he could do it with Mary at his side.

Now the only problem was… How was he going to propose to her? He paced back and forth in the hallway besides the painting he got all of his food from, with his arms crossed over his chest. This was a rare time when Mary had decided to read more and not eat with him, so he fortunately had some alone time. He gently tugged at the collar of the coat he was wearing, and looked around the hall as he thought about what to do.

"Would she want a ring?" He muttered, rubbing his chin as he thought about it. _No, she said that she didn't want a diamond ring after she learned about how they were typically mined and what the conditions were like for the miners. _It made sense that Mary would think that, since she herself was practically a prisoner of the gallery, unable to leave and do what she wanted. Granted, she was much happier now, but it didn't make it any less true.

"So a diamond is out of the question, but a Ring is promising. I just need to figure out what to put on it." He thought harder, "Maybe a necklace would be good too? Or some other jewelry?" What made this so difficult was that he knew that Mary would love absolutely anything he did for her, but he wanted this to be really special. He didn't want her to simply be happy knowing that he loved her, but he wanted her to realize how significantly he loved her, and he wanted to know that he was willing to be with her his whole life.

"Well, I guess proposing would kind of get that across." He mused, realizing that it was the act of proposing that was significant, and not the actual ring. Hell, diamond rings were a relatively new phenomenon anyway, since it started in the 1930's within the United States. What did people do prior to that? Maybe it was worth researching…

"Garry?"

He jumped when he heard the voice, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Mary standing there, looking at him with a slight smile. She was wearing a very casual outfit, just some jean shorts and a sleeveless blouse, and her hair was down to his mid back, with nothing else done to it. He let out a sigh as he looked at her, placing a hand over his heart as he felt it beating erratically from the scare, and he forced out a chuckle.

"You get scared so easily," She purred as she walked up to his back and she wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her body into his back.

"Ah, why are you here?" He shuddered at her touch, and placed his hands on hers as she held him. He loved the feeling of her body against his own, and he closed his eyes as he relaxed.

"You don't want me here?" She asked, an amused smile crossing her lips, as her eyes lit up with absolute delight.

"No – It's not that!" His eyes darted open, and he tried to look behind him at Mary. He stopped panicking when he heard her laughter however.

"I know!" She laughed, letting go of him and crossing her arms under her chest, "I just came to see what you were up to, since you've been here far longer than you usually are."

"Were you worried?" He asked as he turned around to face her, dusting off his coat for no real reason other than the give his hands something to do as he looked at her.

"Not really," She shook her head, "Just curious, really."

He smiled, "Well, I'm just pacing, so I'm probably not going to be very interesting to be around."

"I noticed. What are you doing that for?" She asked, eyeing him suspiciously, "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing." He shook his head quickly not wanting her to know the real reason for why he was doing it. It would ruin any effect if she were to find out now, so he had to keep it a secret.

He saw Mary's eyes light up behind her glasses, and if possible, her smile seemed to widen even larger, "That always means something."

"Heh, yeah… You've got me, it's something." He allowed her to know, since he figured that her knowing that he _was_ thinking of something wouldn't be too harmless.

"What is it then?" She asked, pressing for more information, like the curious woman she was.

Garry's smile faded away, and he simply looked thoughtful, bringing a finger up to tap his chin a few times, "Well… Mary, we've been in here for ten years now, you know?" He averted his eyes, feeling butterflies in his stomach.

"Yeah, I remember when you first came in here!" She answered, chipper as ever. He noticed from the corner of his eye that she was balancing on the balls of her feet as she stated that.

"Ib and I were transferred into here after looking at the Fabricated World painting, and after a little while, we met you." He wistfully recounted, his eyes looking off into the distance, "Then we traveled together for a little while…"

Mary nodded, and she walked over to Garry, closing her eyes and placing her head on his chest, "I remember. It's kind of nostalgic to think about to it." She gently held Garry, at peace with her eyes closed, her excited attitude from earlier was diminished.

Garry unconsciously rubbed Mary's head, "Yeah, it is."

"Why did you bring it up? What does that have to do with you pacing around?" She asked as she still held her position on his chest.

"A lot," He admitted, "Mary… "

"Yes?" She lifted her head and looked him right in the eyes. Looking into her blue eyes, Garry felt himself getting lost, and his mind slowed down as if he were being hypnotized. He shook his head, briefly wondering about the quote 'Love Makes You Stupid', perhaps there was more truth to that after all… Regardless, he reached up and moved some of Mary's blonde hair aside out of her face, and leaned down to kiss her. She wasn't quite expecting that, but it was clear that she didn't find it problematic at all, and allowed him to go through with it.

"While I appreciate that," Mary spoke up once their lips parted, "What's the significance?"

"Can't I just kiss you because I love you?" He asked, sounding mildly offended that she thought he needed a reason beyond that to kiss her.

"If you were anyone else, I'd accept that as a viable excuse," She giggled, reaching up and flicking his nose, "But you almost always reserve kissing me until after we do something together, or if we're in bed." She whispered the last part, but even then, it was quite loud in the silent gallery hallway.

He faintly blushed, glad that none of the other denizens of the gallery were around to hear that, "You're more perceptive than I give you credit for."

"Well, I AM over one hundred years old. Someone like me notices these things over time." She crossed her arms again, her smile never leaving her face. Oh, Garry wasn't going to let her get away with that one.

"Yeah, I guess an old lady like you would notice them then." He retorted, and was immediately gratified when Mary gave him a wide eyed stare. Her arms slowly uncrossed, and she shook her head.

"Oh, you didn't just say that!" She laughed as she backed from holding him, and then she started smacking him lightly across the head, "Take it back, I'm not that old!"

"Hey, I was only agreeing with you, you're the one who said you were over a hundred!" He laughed, reaching his arm up in a half-hearted attempt to block her light smacks on his head. Mary stopped after a little bit and continued to laugh, and even Garry joined in with her. It took a little while, but they both eventually quieted down.

"You still haven't told me what was on your mind." She reminded him.

"I was hoping you'd forget." He replied honestly, cursing in his mind.

"Is it something bad?" She asked, her smile disappearing complete as her lips turned downward into a slight frown. The shine in her eyes were completely gone now, and she looked very serious.

"No," He shook his head; he realized that she might be starting to get the wrong idea, "It's nothing bad."

She nodded, "I see…" She looked utterly unconvinced, and she unconsciously crossed her arms, something Garry noticed she did a _lot _when she was nervous or anxious.

"Mary, is something wrong?" He reached forward and gently hugged her, and started to gently rub the back of her head, even though she couldn't feel it. She seemed to act like she could feel it though, since she relaxed in his hands and let out a small breath. It was a common thing he did for her whenever she was upset.

"Well…" She looked down to the ground now, hiding her eyes from his view. This only caused Garry's worry to increase tenfold, and he continued to rub her head soothingly.

After a few seconds, when she didn't say anything more, Garry gently spoke, "Mary?"

"It's been on my mind for almost a year now." She finally spoke up, not moving an inch from her position. Her eyes were still down, and he felt her shake slightly.

"What has?" He felt his heart skip – that was the same exact amount of time that he had been thinking about proposing to her, but he could never think of an adequate way to do so. Was there something about Mary that he had missed in that time span? Was she sick? No, that was stupid, she couldn't be sick… Then what was it?

She sighed, "Garry, do you miss the other world? The one you belong to?"

"I'm fine here." He immediately stated, not even pausing to think about it.

"Please be honest with me." She replied, finally looking up from the ground to look right into his eyes, her blue eyes were shining, and he realized that she was barely constraining tears. What was this about?!

He sighed, "Initially it was hard – very hard. I won't lie to you Mary, adapting to this place took me a very long time."

"That's what I thought." She muttered, looking back down to the ground. Garry wasn't going to have her doing that though.

"Hey," He gently reached a hand down and lifted her chin back up, and tapped her nose light in admonishment, "Let me finish." She looked mildly annoyed when he tapped her nose, her eyes narrowing slightly, but she looked thoughtful.

"Ok." She nodded after a few seconds, looking him in the eyes again.

He let out a small breath, "Mary, I don't think I ever told you this, but I initially did intend to leave you all those years ago, when I first woke up after I thought you killed me. When I took you to your room, I was about to leave until I saw your diary." He noticed her blush, "It was a very good thing I did see that, since it is what convinced me to stay behind and try to befriend you. I saw you as a… kindred spirit, I guess you could say. Your father left you, leaving you all alone, sort of like what happened to me when I was a kid. I know how that loneliness feels, Mary, I knew I couldn't just leave you behind like that."

"So you stayed behind because you felt bad for me?"

"Yes." He replied bluntly, hoping she wouldn't take it the wrong way. He felt her hands gripping his coat tightly, but eventually her fists lost their grip, and he heard her chuckling.

"I want to be mad at you, but honestly, I'm thankful that you even stayed. I realize now that it was a _really_ big decision, one my younger self never would have understood, even if you did try to explain it to her slowly." Mary averted her eyes to the side as she said that, not wanting to look at Garry.

Garry continued to rub her head, and slowly started to speak, "I decided to do for you what no one else did for me – I always wanted there to be someone to play with me when I wanted to play, to laugh with me when I was having fun, to sleep with me when I was scared at night… I never had that person in my life, so I guess being with you was some sort of wish fulfillment on my own end."

"That had the added benefit of helping me." She replied as she looked back at him.

"Yes." He nodded, "I helped you because that is what I would want someone else to do for me if I were in the same position. I did everything I could for you Mary, and I don't regret it at all."

Mary smiled with that answer – he was always honest with her, and that was something she really adored. Suddenly her eyes widened in realization and she looked back into his eyes, "But you never answered my original question; do you miss the other world?"

"I did answer it," He insisted, "Mary, honestly, staying here and helping you has not only been wish fulfillment, but seeing you succeed, watching you laugh and smile, seeing you become the woman you are now has honestly been a fulfillment that I doubt I could have ever felt in the real world. I don't think I could have ever found a woman quite like you in the other world either – you're understanding, you laugh when I do, you don't get angry at the smallest things – you're perfect in every way." Mary blushed, and looked down.

"So to answer your question, no, I don't miss the other world. I wish I could take you there and show you the places and sights that you can't see in this world, but as a whole, I'm very happy to be in here with you, whether it be for ten years, or for all eternity."

"Do you really mean it?" She asked, her eyes again shone with barely constrained tears, and a smile formed on her face as she looked up at him. She wrapped her arms around him, and held him tightly to herself.

"I do," He answered, "Mary, I love you, and I thank you for being with me all of these years."

"It's not like I had a choice." She responded, blinking her eyes to try and rid them of the tears.

"On the contrary, you did. You had the choice to kill me and escape; you even had the choice to not kill me and STILL escape. Even now, you can still get out of here and see the world that you've been missing out on."

Mary shook her head, "I wouldn't do that."

"If I said I didn't mind, would you still say that?" He asked her, and he suddenly felt her going very still in his grasp. He still kept comfortingly rubbing the back of her head, waiting to see her reaction.

"What?" she gasped, her eyes widening as she looked him straight into his eyes once she was over the shock. Did he actually say what she thought he said?!

"If I told you that I would happily allow you to leave, allow you to become human and live your life to the fullest on the other side, in the real world, would you still stay here with me? Do you stay with me out of a sense of obligation?"

"No!" She shouted, bringing her hands back from around his back and slapping him hard across the chest a few times, "Why would you say that? Stupid! I love you! I don't want to leave, even if it means that I could become human! I don't want to leave without you!" She gritted her teeth and glared up at him – how could he be so stupid to think that she would want that?

"See? That is why I refuse to leave." He chuckled, ignoring the sting from how hard she slapped him, and he wrapped his arms around her again, "I love you for you, because you love me for me."

She shook her head and affectionately pressed her head into his chest as she wrapped her hands around him again, "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"Yet you still stay with me anyway." He replied, sounding very happy.

"Well, you're _my_ idiot." She emphasized. As they parted from the hug, Garry turned around quickly, missing the confused look she gave him as he did so. Garry meanwhile was desperately thinking of how to say what he wanted to say to her – this was a good start, the mood was right, Mary was emotionally receptive to whatever he said… Now was the perfect time, but… How in the world was he going to do it?!

"Garry?" She mumbled, touching his shoulder. He slowly turned around, looking down at the woman standing in front of him, who still looked somewhat confused. His thoughts ran around in circles in his head, debating on what he should do or how he should act, but he simply decided to allow whatever came to him to take over. With that, he gently hugged her. "What are you doing?" Mary asked, starting to feel a bit worried with how he was acting now.

"I have nothing to give you, forgive me." He whispered into her ear, as they parted again, and he got onto his knee in front of her. He reached forward and took hold of her hand, and he looked up, his eyes locking into hers, "Mary…"

Mary's eyes widened recognizing the pose from so many stories she had read. She remembered wishing that she would be the lucky girl in one of those stories, and now… Now it was actually happening! She knew that if she had a heart, it would be beating so quickly right now, and she was positive that her face was turning a bright shade of red, and she knew that tears were beginning to spill out of her eyes, but despite all of that, she managed to muster out, "Y – Yes?"

"I've known you for t – ten years, four of those w – we've been dating for." He cursed his stuttering, he was so nervous and his heart was beating so fast that he felt like he was going to pass out at any second, "I love the w – way you smile, I love your laugh, I love it when you s – share your happiness with me. We m – might fight occasionally, and have our disagreements, b – but I – I know that despite all of that, I still love you. I want to continue to l – love you, I want to continue writing, drawing, and reading with you…" He let out a deep breath, "Mary…"

Mary was involuntarily shaking all over; tears were spilling from her eyes like a faucet on full blast. Her lips were trembling and she found herself nodding even before he had popped the question to her, her glasses bouncing up and down as she did. She couldn't trust herself to speak right now.

"Will you marry me?" He asked as he looked up into her eyes. She could see that he was shaking as he asked, and she wanted to slap him for even thinking that she would have a different answer!

"YES!" She shouted, her emotions exploding as she jumped forward towards him and wrapped her arms around him. She held on as tight as she could, and she buried her face in his chest as she continued to cry loudly, her sobs echoing in the hallway. She felt happier than she ever had before, and she was shaking so badly, but Garry was there to hold onto her, not allowing her to fall to the ground.

"Thank you." He muttered, tears welling up in his own eyes as well as he held her. His grip on her was tighter than usual, but Mary didn't really care at all at all.

She looked up; her eyes still had tears pouring out as she looked him straight in the eyes. She smiled and shakily spoke, "I - I love you."

"I love you too," He replied, and the engaged couple leaned down to kiss passionately. Mary was almost chewing Garry's lips as they kissed, and their teeth clicked together as they parted, since they were still shaking.

"We need to plan a date for the wedding," Mary mumbled, wiping her eyes as she sniffled a little bit, "And we'll have to invite everyone!"

Garry let out a content hum as he still held her in a hug, "We'll have it when you're comfortable."

She giggled, though it came out as more of a hiccup than anything else, "Garry… Right now, let's go to our room…"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm _very _sure." She replied. He suddenly lifted her up, causing her to let out a little yelp as he did so, and she gently smacked him on the head, "Give me a little warning next time!" She laughed and cried at the same time, since she was so happy.

"Sure thing," He replied with a smile, leading to the two of them down the hallway to their house. Mary wrapped her arms around his neck and was still crying, though she was smiling the entire way, glad that she had found someone so willing to stay with her and love her the way that he did. It was just like the ending to the fairy tales she used to love having read to her all those years ago.

XxXxXxX

Notes:

And that's that. Garry proposed to Mary, and she accepted, I hope you all enjoyed this story!

To be completely honest, this is not actually where it was supposed to end. This is about three fourths of the way through my outline, because I omitted the last arc of the story. The reason for this omission is simple: I just don't have the drive to finish this story at the moment. I WANT to finish it, but right now writing it just feels like a job, even though I have the final bit of the outline there, and I promised myself that if my hobby begins to feel like a chore(and if I'm not getting paid for it), then I would take a break, so that is exactly what I'm doing. I picked this spot to end it, because after this point, it would open up the final arc, and I just don't want to leave you guys on a massive cliffhanger. Hopefully I'll eventually come around to finishing this story, because like I said, I DO want to see this finished.

If you're curious, the final arc would have covered these points:

1. Garry and Mary discuss the fact that they're essentially immortal, and bound to live in there forever. Are they ok with this fact? It's romantic to think that they'll love and be with each other forever, but it's not very realistic. Could they both stay in there together forever and NOT go insane?

2. Two new people enter the world! A woman who appears to be in her thirties, and a young boy who appears to be around nine years old. The boy appears to be the woman's child, but something seems a bit off about them...

3. Garry and Mary do a bit of role reversal - instead of Mary trying to kill the survivors, it's Garry attempting to kill them, with Mary trying to protect them. Why is Garry doing this? What could drive him to want to kill?

4. Ib finally reappears in some way, since she did in fact live! Does she come into the painting? If not, what is she doing outside?

If you've been reading my stories, you know that I hate sad endings, so I don't think it's a spoiler to say that everything will turn out all right in the end. If you want to imagine that it ends happily, I can assure that it WILL end on a happy note.

And that's that, I hope to continue this story in a little while, but for now I'm listing it as complete and going to focus on other things. Thank you everyone for reading, and I encourage you to check out my other stories if you enjoyed this one! Have a good day!


End file.
